


For the Price of a Soul

by SilverCookieDust



Series: For the Price of a Soul [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Child Abuse, Dubious Consent, Forced Abortion, M/M, Master/Slave, Murder, Self-Harm, There is no Happy Ending Here, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-05
Updated: 2014-03-06
Packaged: 2017-12-10 12:14:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 113
Words: 410,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/785942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverCookieDust/pseuds/SilverCookieDust
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Vernon Dursley’s abuse escalates to unbearable levels, Harry Potter makes a deal that gives him incredible power at the tips of his fingers. Ten years down the line he’s going to have to pay for it, but a lot can happen in ten years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A NOTE IF YOU'RE COMING TO THIS AFTER READING BUTTERFLY WINGS: Please expect a drop in writing quality. This story was written first and was my first ever long fic, and it shows.
> 
> This fic is technically a crossover with the TV show Supernatural, HOWEVER the elements of Supernatural are small and fully explained, so you needn't have seen the show to understand them and you shouldn't let it put you off reading. This is, very much, a Harry Potter fanfic.
> 
> ABOUT WARNINGS: For chapter-by-chapter details of warnings, please see http://forthepriceofasoul.tumblr.com/post/110692775858/
> 
> I've got enough comments (and reviews on FFN) that I now feel it pertinent to mention that this is **not a happy story**. Bad shit happens. When good shit happens, it's usually closely followed by more bad shit to spoil it. If you're looking for hurt/comfort, you won't find it, nor is there a happy ending. Consider yourself warned.

Harry Potter learns at a very young age that he Doesn't Matter. He quickly learns that no matter how much he cries, his aunt won't take him out of the small crib tucked in the corner of Dudley's room unless he needs a nappy change or feeding, and sometimes not even then. Sometimes his uncle comes and picks him up and shakes him until he falls quiet. Eventually he learns not to cry at all.

He doesn't understand why he's not allowed to play with Dudley's toys or why he's still in a crib when Dudley's got a proper bed or why he's supposed to stay in it when Dudley's allowed to move freely around their room and the rest of the house, but he doesn't need to understand why. He knows that if he climbs out his crib, if he touches Dudley's toys, or climbs in Dudley's bed, then he'll get unkindly hauled up and dumped back inside his crib with bruises on his little arms and only his pale green blanket for company and comfort.

Harry doesn't get potty trained like Dudley, but he learns to control himself anyway. His nappies only get changed so often and he learns to hold it all in for as long as possible or suffer sitting in a soiled nappy for hours.

When he outgrows the crib, he's moved to the cupboard under the stairs and finally gets taken out of nappies. He's free to go between his cupboard and the bathroom as he needs, but he's still not allowed to roam the house freely. If he does, he gets a smack to the bottom and sent back to his cupboard with a scolding for being underfoot even if his aunt and uncle are doing nothing more than watching TV in the other room.

He's just finished from a bath one day and about to go back down to his cupboard when Dudley comes tearing out of his own room, bumps into Petunia, who stumbles and knocks Harry, who tumbles head first through the safety gate she just opened and falls head over heels down the stairs. Petunia shrieks. Startled, Dudley begins bawling. Vernon thunders out of the living room just in time to see Harry hit the bottom safety gate.

It bends, the solid metal stretching like elastic until it almost touches the hallway carpet before rebounding back and spitting Harry onto the steps. For several long seconds there's silence as the three Dursleys stare at Harry in astonishment, and then Harry opens his mouth and wails.

He isn't hurt much, just a few bruises that heal quickly. Petunia and Vernon fight over whether to take him to the hospital but eventually decide that, as there are no obvious broken bones and Harry appears fine, it's unnecessary.

Dudley asks questions about the bendy safety gate but his parents shush him. That day Petunia tells Harry to keep his freakishness to himself or they'll send him to an orphanage.

"What fweakiness?" he asks, confused. She doesn't answer.

A few months later Dudley learns how to open the safety gate and throws himself down the stairs. He gets rushed to the hospital with a broken arm and a gash on his head that needs stitches. The Dursleys leave Harry behind but when they get back Vernon jerks Harry out of his cupboard and smacks him across the backside so hard Harry screams. Between his sobs and the sensation of his butt being on fire, Harry just about manages to hear Vernon's warning about not "poisoning my son with your weird shit" as he's thrown back into the cupboard and locked in. Later, he discovers the reason Dudley jumped down the stairs was so he could bounce on the safety bars like Harry did.

Petunia doesn't talk to Harry anymore. She won't feed him, she doesn't touch him, and she barely even looks at him. Vernon, on the other hand, makes a point of punishing Harry for the slightest misdemeanour, real or imagined. When Harry tries to get extra food to supplement the scraps he's fed as meals, Vernon smacks him so hard Harry can't sit for days. When Dudley knocks over a vase he blames Harry, who gets locked in the cupboard for two days straight. He has to pee and poop in the corner and the smell makes him sick. When Vernon lets him out, he calls Harry a disgusting freak and uses the garden hose to wash him off, refusing to let Harry use the bath.

When Dudley and Harry start pre-school, Harry's also put to work, Petunia telling him that if he's old enough to go to school, he's old enough to start earning his keep. She doesn't teach him how to clean, just gives him a duster or cloth and curtly tells him to get on with him. If he doesn't do well enough, he gets sent to bed with no dinner, and he quickly learns what he needs to do and how it's done best. It's exhausting work, but after the first couple of times he takes a break and ends up falling asleep only to be woken up with a smack, he forces himself to push through and collapse only when he's back in the relative safety of his cupboard.

* * *

He only knows his birthday is on the 31st of July because when he assumes his birthday is the same day as Dudley's, after his aunt and uncle tells him they're the same age, they're quick to correct him that not only does he absolutely not share a birthday with their precious Dudders, but that Dudley is a whole month older than him. Harry doesn't think a whole month really makes much difference, but for them it might as well be three years.

He doesn't get birthday or Christmas presents and never has, so he's surprised to wake up on his fourth birthday and find a rectangular present wrapped in shiny blue paper with a small white card on the front that reads: _To Harry, Happy 4th Birthday_. He opens it in there, away from Dudley, to find a box with four figurines inside. They're eight inches tall, two men and two women. The names underneath each figure read: Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw, and Salazar Slytherin.

The Dursleys' deny having bought Harry the present. Vernon tells Harry not to ask questions and Petunia still refuses to talk to him. Dudley tries to steal it from him but whenever he tries to pick up the box it slips out of his chubby hands like wet soap.

Later that day Vernon tells Harry he's moving up into the spare bedroom. Harry's first instinct is to ask why, but he knows better than to do that and hurriedly grabs his blanket and the figures from the cupboard. He doesn't want to give them a chance to change their mind.

He has only a bed, an empty bookcase, and a small chest of drawers for clothes. He doesn't mind. It's more than he had before. A few days after his birthday Petunia brings home clothes from the thrift shop; they're still second hand, but at least they fit him properly which is better than Dudley's old clothes.

That night Harry sits on his bed and just stares at his new toys. He hasn't yet opened the box. It's not flimsy, like the ones Dudley's Action Man figures come in; this box is sturdy, with a tough clear front that almost feels like glass. It's painted red, yellow, blue and green, with the names of the figures painted in black script along the bottom. On the top it says _Famous Figurines: Hogwarts Founders Edition._

He opens it carefully and picks up the one named Godric. He has a large mane of brown hair, wears a brilliant red and gold outfit and has a little silver sword held up in front of him. Harry almost drops it when the figure smiles and moves. He clambers out of bed and sets the figure down on the top of the bookcase. Godric moves across it, waving the sword around and fighting off invisible enemies.

Harry has to cover his mouth with both hands to keep down the laughter. He knows he can't let Dudley find out about this. He'd definitely want the toy for himself then and Harry doesn't want to lose the first present he's ever got.

He gets out the other three and puts them with Godric. Helga is a round woman with a kind smile and dark ginger hair, wearing a navy dress with a yellow cloak, and she carries a short brown wand in one hand and a golden goblet in the other. She waves the wand over her goblet and Harry imagines it filling with water before she offers it to Godric, who's finished fighting his foe.

Rowena wears dark blue robes and has long black hair topped with a sparkling silver tiara. She also has a wand, lighter and longer than Helga's, and carries a book in her pocket, which she takes out to read. Salazar is a thin man with a long black wand and a grey beard that reaches the waist of his dark green robes. He has a gold necklace and a snake that crawls along his arms and around his neck.

Harry spends an hour just watching them, awed. When he gets tired he carefully puts them back in their box, wraps it in one of Dudley's old shirts and then puts it under the loose floor board beneath his bed, where it'll be safe. He falls asleep with a smile on his face.

Petunia still avoids him as much as possible and never makes eye contact with him, but at least now he's allowed at the table during meal times. He gets less than half the proportion Dudley gets given but it's more than he was eating before so he doesn't complain.

For a while after his birthday, Vernon doesn't hit Harry. Sometimes he looks like he wants to but Petunia always hisses at him and they would both look around as though expecting someone to be watching from the corner of the room.

But early in September, Harry accidentally spills a bottle of milk and Vernon claps him round the back of the head—hard. Immediately after he pales and whirls, looking around the kitchen in a panic. When nothing happens, he relaxes slightly and looks back at Harry, who's somewhat dazed.

"Get out of my sight, boy!"

Harry runs.

Vernon doesn't touch him for another week, and then he goes back to his usual ways. Harry half expects to get thrown back in his cupboard. He isn't sure what scared Vernon into leaving him alone for a while, but he wishes whatever it is would come back and scare him again.

* * *

Harry and Dudley start proper school that September. Harry loves it. There are two Reception classes and he and Dudley aren't put together. He likes learning English and Maths and Science and enjoys art lessons and story time and almost everything else about school. He especially enjoys talking to the other kids and not worrying about Dudley coming over to bother them... at least until break times. Break times are fine at first, but when it starts to become clear that Harry is learning and picking things up much faster than Dudley, they become the time of the school day when Dudley and his new friends pick on Harry, pushing him over or hitting him. The teachers step in most of the time, but they can't keep an eye on them permanently and sometimes they just don't catch them early enough.

A stomach bug goes around the school shortly before Christmas. Dudley catches it just as the holidays start, much to his and Harry's chagrin. Dudley's annoyed that he doesn't manage to get any extra time off school, and Harry's annoyed that he has to listen to Dudley moan and whine, set up on the couch with his bed covers to watch TV all day. Harry still has to do his chores and he doesn't like being the subject of Dudley's attention when he's trying to do his chores and Dudley's bored and decides to throw things at him and generally be annoying.

When Harry catches the bug, he throws up all over the kitchen floor. Petunia makes him clean it up then banishes him to his bedroom with a bucket, telling him not to come out until he's "stopped producing such disgusting fluids".

Harry feels like he's dying. He's sweating terribly but he's freezing and his blanket provides little warmth. He sits in his room, shivering and sweating and waiting for death to come for him. The smell from the sick bucket makes him even more nauseated than he already is. There's vomit on his clothes and he peed himself.

When Death comes for him, he goes gladly, leaning into the soft fabric of Death's dark robes and succumbing to unconsciousness with a gentle sigh.

The next few days are a haze of odd smells and unpleasant tastes. Harry thinks he must be in hell. It's not so bad. There's no hellfire and brimstone, whatever that is, and even though it smells weird—like smoke and wood and the strange plants at the end of the Dursleys' garden—it doesn't smell bad. Harry finds it almost comforting, like... like home.

His aunt and uncle always said he was a child of hell.

He wakes up in his bedroom. He's tucked into bed, wearing brand new pyjamas, and there's a purple teddy tucked under his arm. Although the teddy is clean and looks brand new, Harry feels like he's seen it somewhere before. It feels familiar in his grip. Like it's _his_.

There's also a Christmas present at the end of his bed, wrapped in silver paper with the same white card that'd been on his birthday present, this time reading simply: _To Harry, Merry Christmas_. Inside is another box, this one titled _Famous Figurines: Potion Makers Edition._ This one had three women and one man, all of them accompanied by a cauldron and a small table with some tiny plastic objects that Harry assumes are potion ingredients, as well as two little potion vials and a stirring rod. When he gets them out, they stand over their cauldrons, toss ingredients inside, and stir the contents.

When he goes downstairs, the Dursleys' are in the living room watching a program about dinosaurs. Petunia notices Harry first and she stiffens. Vernon doesn't look up from his golfing magazine and Dudley's gaze is firmly fixed on the TV. There's new toys scattered across the floor and the bike Dudley wanted so desperately for Christmas is sat in the hallway.

Harry clears his throat. "Um... thank you," he says quietly.

Petunia wets her lips nervously. Vernon looks up. "What was that, boy?" he grumbles.

"I said thank you. For my teddy," he adds, lifting the bear. Dudley sees him move and looks around. At the sight of the teddy his eyes widen and he scrambles to his feet.

"Dad!" he whines. "Why does Harry get a new toy and I don't? That's not fair! I want a teddy! Why didn't I get a teddy for Christmas?"

He makes a move towards Harry but Petunia grabs her son, holding him in place, her eyes wide. "We'll get you a teddy!" she promises him hurriedly.

Vernon snorts. "Teddies are for babies! You're a big boy now, Dudley. You don't want a baby's toy, do you?"

Although he's speaking to Dudley, his eyes are on Harry and he sneers.

"Vernon!" Petunia hisses. "Remember what he said?"

Vernon grunts and turns his attention back to his magazine. Dudley points at Harry. "Baby!"

Petunia glances around the room like she expects someone to jump out of the walls and shushes Dudley.

Harry goes back to his bedroom, frowning. He can't remember much from the past week but he remembers black robes and the distinctive smell. He doesn't know where he was but he's pretty sure that it's nowhere in Little Whinging.

He gets his figurines but doesn't take them out of their boxes. He just lays them on his bed with the teddy and stares at them, questions flying through his head.

Someone took him away. The same someone who gave him the presents? The mysterious man that Petunia is scared of? Where had they taken him? Why had they taken him?

But the biggest question, the one that keeps him awake half the night, is _why had they brought him back?_

* * *

Harry names his teddy Kiwi. He isn't sure why, but it feels right. He takes Kiwi everywhere, never letting the bear leave his sight lest something should happen to her. Kiwi is a magical teddy. Dudley tries damaging her one day but no matter how hard he pulls and pulls, Kiwi's ears and arms and legs stay firmly attached to her body.

But the really magical thing about Kiwi is that she talks. If Harry holds her close and buries his face in Kiwi's soft purple fur and whispers, "I love you," then Kiwi talks back, saying in a gentle woman's voice, "I love you, Harry."

Late at night when the house is silent and the room feels too big and Harry is lonely, he closes his eyes and whispers to Kiwi and pretends the answering voice is his mum. It makes him feel less alone.

Like after his birthday, Vernon doesn't hit Harry for a while after Christmas but it takes less time before he starts again.

When Harry's teacher notices bruises on Harry's arms, Harry tells her that they came from Vernon and social services are called. There's an investigation but Vernon and Petunia paint Harry as a liar and troublemaker and all it takes is a brief moment alone for Vernon to hiss at Harry that if social services take him away then he'll end up in an orphanage, and Harry quickly changes his attitude, saying he lied and the bruises are nothing more than the result of typical childish rough and tumble.

(Orphanages are the gateway to hell. They're dumping grounds for damned children, the only place on earth that'll accept the unloved and unwanted. You end up in an orphanage, you're damned no matter what you do with the rest of your life because all it takes is one night sleeping there and you're doomed to become a monstrous demon from hell who only looks human. Vernon makes it very clear on several occasions that whatever Harry thinks of living at number four, Privet Drive, living in an orphanage would be much worse.)

In the weeks leading up to Harry's fifth birthday, Vernon doesn't touch him. Harry tries to stay up all night and see the mysterious person that visits him, but he falls asleep and they've been by the time he wakes up. He gets another present wrapped in blue paper, with another box of figurines inside ( _Hogwarts Headmasters Edition_ ), but instead of playing with them he shoves the box with the other two and doesn't touch them. He's angry at the person that brings them, angry that they bring him presents and scare his aunt and uncle but don't take him away for good, or seem to care that Vernon still hits him and has just grown smart enough not to do it in the run up to his birthday. It's only days before Vernon starts again.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The demon Crowley is from the TV show Supernatural. No copyright infringement is intended.

By the time winter rolls around, Harry decides that it must be Father Christmas who's the one to bring him presents. Johnny Miller from his class tells everyone that Father Christmas isn't real and it's parents who buy people presents, but Harry doesn't have any parents and the Dursleys certainly aren't the ones who buy him them, so he figures that Father Christmas brings a present for the children that don't have anyone to buy them anything, even on their birthdays too, and that's why he doesn't take Harry away. It isn't his fault—even Father Christmas can't look after all the orphans in the world—and so it's okay for Harry to play with his figurines.

He plans to stay up on Christmas Eve to try and catch Father Christmas again. He won't ask him to take him away, but he wants to ask him to at least see about maybe finding somewhere else for Harry to live, or just finding someone else who can help Harry find somewhere to live. He's even prepared to give back his figurines and Kiwi, even though he really doesn't want to give her back, if it'll convince the jolly old man. But he remembers how hard it'd been to stay up on his birthday, so as an extra precaution he writes a letter and clutches it in his grip as he sits on his bed, listening eagerly for reindeer hooves and bells.

He falls asleep again, but something wakes him up before dawn. There's a silver-wrapped present— _Ministers of Magic Edition_ he'll discover later—on his bed and the letter's gone. He sighs unhappily and hopes the letter will be enough, that maybe when Father Christmas sees how desperate he is and how willing he is to give up his presents then Father Christmas will find someone else to look after him. But not an orphanage, he's careful to add. He doesn't want to go to one of those.

He goes to use the bathroom but on his way to it he hears noises coming from his aunt and uncle's room, the door of which isn't quite shut properly. He hesitates, but when he hears angry voices coming from inside, he creeps forward, peering through the gap. It's dark and he can't see much, but he can see enough to make out the dark figure standing over Vernon and Petunia's bed, talking angrily but too quiet for Harry to make out what they're saying. Harry watches, not sure what he should do, but then the figure reaches into their pocket and draws out something that might be a knife, and Harry turns and hurries quietly but quickly down the stairs, rushing into the kitchen to grab the phone and dial 999.

Later, when the police have been and gone and the figure's vanished uncaught, Harry doesn't understand why his aunt and uncle look so angry with him for calling the police. The kind police officer congratulates him and tells him he did the right thing and that he'd been brave, and Vernon and Petunia nod and force smiles and choke out something about being proud, but as soon as the officer is gone and the street outside is no longer flashing red and blue, they turn angry glares on him and send him up to his room.

Vernon's abuse gets worse and Harry doesn't understand why. What does it matter if the whole street is gossiping about them? Someone broke into their house and maybe tried to kill his aunt and uncle; shouldn't they be grateful he woke up when he did, before anything bad happened?

He doesn't hear from Father Christmas. He doesn't know if Father Christmas replies to letters but his sixth birthday comes and goes ( _Alchemists Edition_ ) with no word nor any sign that anyone's coming for him or doing anything to help him. He tosses his new figurines down with the rest without opening them, filled with anger. He's half tempted to toss them all out but he can't bring himself to do it. Whoever they're from and however unhelpful and uncaring they're being to his plight, he can't make himself throw away the only things that are his, not when he doesn't have much. Maybe the person who brings them doesn't care enough to help him, but they're not hitting him and they give him things, so that's still got to be better than the Dursleys.

The following September Dudley and his friends invent a game called Harry Hunting. Harry doesn't like this game, but thankfully he can get away from them most of the time. He can run faster than Dudley and his friends and he always gets away.

One day Harry's running from them and jumps over some bins, only instead of jumping over the bins he somehow ends up on the roof. He gets in trouble for climbing on school buildings and no one believes him when he says he didn't climb up. The school suspends him for three days and Vernon beats him and sends him to bed with no dinner.

Harry decides later that night that he's a wizard. The Dursleys say magic isn't real but Harry knows that's not true—how else would his toys work or Kiwi talk?

He doesn't have a wand like his figures but he decides to try some magic anyway. There's no longer a safety gate on the stairs and he doesn't fancy jumping down them anyway, but jumping off the bed yields no results. He decides it must not be high enough and one day he climbs up a tree in the back garden and jumps out of it. The ground doesn't go springy and he sprains his ankle. Petunia is furious about needing to take him to the hospital and Vernon banishes him to the cupboard for a week. Harry doesn't try jumping out any more trees.

He decides to try something smaller. One of his classmates once spoke about a magician on TV who makes people float and Harry decides that would be fun. People are too big and obtrusive, so Harry practices with his school work. Dudley's pictures get stuck on the refrigerator but Petunia doesn't even glance at Harry's work. Harry keeps them and practices making them float.

For the most part, his 'practising' consists of staring at the papers and willing them to lift off the ground, or wiggling his fingers and saying nonsense words. One time a piece rises a few centimetres off the floor and he thinks he's done it but then realises it's the breeze from the open window.

* * *

On Wednesday evenings Petunia has book club and Dudley has football club. Harry's supposed to sit on the sidelines and watch, but the coach doesn't pay him any attention so Harry sneaks off to the library. He finds every book he can about magic. There aren't many, but all of them agree on one thing—performing magic requires control. Harry asks Mrs Martin, the kind little librarian who's willing to help with whatever he needs, how you got control. She tells him about meditation and teaches him how to do it.

He finds other books whilst looking for magic—books about demons and devils. He reads about deals and souls and summoning rituals. For now, he doesn't do anything with the information, but it's there, at the back of his mind with a niggling little thought about how he needs to start looking out for himself because it's clear no one else will.

Harry spends every free minute over the next few months practising his meditation until he can listen to Dudley's taunts without blinking an eye lid. He still can't levitate anything but he doesn't stop trying.

He doesn't try and stay up on Christmas night, nor expect anything other than another silver wrapped present, which he sticks with the others without even unwrapping it. His mysterious gift giver—and he's over thinking it's anyone as ridiculous as Father Christmas—can rot in hell for all he cares.

On his seventh birthday ( _Albion_ _Edition_ , and the one from Christmas had been the _Greek Edition_ ; he cracks, too curious about them, and annoyed at the unwrapped ones sitting with the wrapped ones) the door to his room is thrown open when he's meditating and Dudley's voice hollers, "Dinner's rea-"

He breaks off with a scream. Surprised, Harry falls painfully on his backside and spins to see what the problem is, but Dudley's just staring at Harry, still screaming. Petunia comes running, scooping her son up and mothering him, asking what's wrong and checking to see if he's hurt. Dudley points a chubby finger at Harry and says, "He was flying!"

Petunia looks at Harry like he's the devil, slams his door shut, and hurries downstairs. Harry just rubs his sore backside and wonders how he'd been flying without even realising.

When Vernon hears about the incident, he loses his temper and hits Harry right across the face, knocking him out of his chair at the dinner table, screaming at him to get out of his sight and calling him a freak.

Harry gets to his feet and walks away calmly. Inside he's scared and angry, but he remembers to control himself. It's what he's been practising for so long; he can't muck it up now. He goes up to his room determined to make himself fly again. So focused on his task, he doesn't even notice when he shuts the door without touching it.

He sneaks out that night to sit in front of the full length mirror in the downstairs hallway. He meditates with his eyes open and just as the sun starts to show through the smoky glass set into the front door, his entire body lifts off the ground and hovers several inches in the air. He grins widely, loses his concentration, and drops. His butt hurts from hitting the wooden floor but he's too busy grinning with pride to care.

By the spring before his eighth birthday, He can levitate himself a foot off the floor with ease, fly Kiwi across the room to him without looking at her, and make a pencil write by itself.

The start of April brings Petunia and Vernon's tenth wedding anniversary. They have a party at the town hall. Vernon gets extraordinarily drunk and Petunia, embarrassed and furious, calls a taxi and sends him home. She also sends Harry with him; they only bring him along in the first place because Mrs Figg, as a guest, can't babysit.

Harry doesn't like going home with a drunk Vernon. As soon as they get back, he makes for the stairs, planning to hide in his room and play with Kiwi and his figures and keep as quiet as possible, but the trip has given Vernon time to get angry about being ejected from his own party and in typical Vernon manner, he lays the blame entirely on Harry. He doesn't even make sense as he shouts at Harry for causing trouble, but Harry's more concerned with the fists and feet that rain down on him.

Only when Harry's unconscious on the floor does Vernon realise that he's finally gone too far. His drunken mind panics, then races to come up with an idea.

* * *

Harry's got a broken arm, a dislocated jaw and fractured cheekbone, three cracked ribs, internal bleeding, and he's gone blind in his left eye. They have to do surgery to fix the internal bleeding and tell him the blindness is caused by a damaged optical nerve and he's lucky he can still see out the other. He finds out Vernon stabbed himself and claimed a burglar had come into the house, no doubt expecting it to be empty on account of the anniversary party, and Vernon had barely saved Harry from being killed. He gets a moment alone with Harry and whispers furiously that no one will believe him if Harry tells the truth, and Harry says absolutely nothing about it. The doctors decide he's too traumatised and book him in with a psychiatrist.

The doctor tells him that with only one working eye, his depth perception and peripheral vision will be affected. He's told to practice throwing a tennis ball in bed, tossing it towards the ceiling to re-teach his brain how to perceive depth, and that it'll take time to get used to his newly limited vision.

His magic won't work anymore. He can't even make a coco pop lift out of a cereal bowl, let alone levitate himself or anything like that, and his mind won't settle enough for him to meditate.

Harry decides things have gone far enough. Vernon nearly killed him and then stabbed himself just to cover it up. Next time Harry might not be lucky enough to survive. It's clear there's no one who'll help him, so he needs to help himself.

The first Wednesday after he gets out of the hospital, he sneaks off to the library again during Dudley's football practice and rereads the book on demon deals. He finds out what he needs—black cat bone, yarrow plant, graveyard dirt, and a picture of himself—and uses the map at the reception desk to find the town crossroads. The closest that has ground he would be able to dig in, rather than solid concrete, is miles away, a couple of dirt roads used by tractors. He doesn't let the distance put him off.

He steals some money from Petunia's purse and skips school on the first Friday of May. There's a shop in town called Heads and Tails, a shop Petunia makes them cross the street whenever they pass it, fingering the crucifix around her throat. It sells the black cat bone and yarrow that he needs. The man behind the counter seems amused that a young boy would be buying such things, but he takes the money without question. He gets graveyard dirt from the church that the Dursleys take them to at Christmas and Easter.

He gets scolded for skipping school but as it's less than a week since he was released from the hospital and he's still got a cast on his arm, no one really wants to punish him for it. Vernon doesn't touch him, having scared himself with just what he's capable of, but Harry doesn't for one second think it'll last. Give it a few weeks and his uncle will go right back to beating him black and blue.

He goes that night and reaches the crossroads at nearly three the next morning. He's got a trowel from the garden shed and digs a small hole at the centre of the crossroads in which to bury the Tupperware tub holding the items. He straightens up, unsure of what's meant to happen next.

"Well, you're a little one, aren't you? Bit beat up, too."

He whirls. A man has appeared. He has a receding hairline, a black coat, and a cockney accent.

Harry straightens his shoulders. "I'm almost eight."

"And what would an almost eight year old want with a man like me?"

The demon moves and Harry turns to keep him in sight; his range of vision is severely reduced now. "The book in the library said I could make a deal with you," Harry says, then adds, "You are the demon, aren't you?"

"Oh, yes. Name's Crowley. And you." He stops, turning to face Harry, who sees that his eyes have turned completely red except for the black pupils. "You're Harry Potter."

"How do you know my name?"

Crowley smiles. "Everyone knows your name, little Potter. The Boy Who Lived is known to us even in the depths of hell."

Harry frowns up at him. "The Boy Who Lived?"

Crowley blinks and his eyes return to normal. "Yeah. Y'know—surviving the attack that killed your parents, defeating Voldemort. At least temporarily."

"My parents died in a car crash."

"Who told you that?"

"My aunt and uncle."

"They lied to you," he says.

Harry stares at Crowley. It's not that he doesn't know his aunt and uncle are liars, but about this? His parents?

He has dreams about his parents. Kind people who take him to museums and the cinema and the zoo. A father who plays football with him and reads bedtime stories. A mother who helps him with homework and cuddles him when he scrapes his knees.

"My parents didn't die?" he asks quietly.

"Oh no, they died," Crowley assures him. "Just not in a car crash."

"Then how?"

"You really don't know?" Crowley asks. "About any of it?"

Harry shakes his head. "Will you tell me?"

"Is that what you want to make a deal for?"

Harry doesn't even hesitate. "No. I want power."

For a long moment, Crowley just looks at him. Harry says nothing. Crowley sighs.

"You're going to have to be a bit more specific," he says. "Political power? Physical power? Magical power?"

"I have magic. Or I did. I can't do it anymore. I want... I want to be able to protect myself. My uncle, he... can you do it? Can you give me the power to defend myself?"

Crowley considers him. Harry stands straight under the inspection, fighting his natural instinct to make himself as small as possible. He can't let himself be weak in front of the demon. He needs this.

Crowley smiles. "I can do it, alright. The real question is: are you willing to pay the price?"

"My soul, right? That's what the book said."

"Not immediately, of course. You get ten years."

Harry nods. "That's a long time."

"I suppose for one so young, it is." He inhales deeply, smiles widely, and approaches Harry. "If you're sure then."

"Do I need to sign something in blood?"

Crowley laughs. "No, nothing so cliché. I just need a little kiss."

Harry's face scrunches up. "A kiss?"

"I'm afraid so. Just pretend I'm your aunt or something."

"I never kissed my aunt."

"Oh. Well then. Just close your eyes; it'll be done in a jiffy."

Harry eyes him warily as Crowley crouches down in front of him and leans forward. He instinctively leans away then forces himself to stop. He needs this power. He squeezes his eyes shut and clenches his fists, standing perfectly still. He feels a pressure against his lips for two seconds, then it's gone and he opens his eyes to see Crowley straightening up. The demon steps back a little and tugs his clothes straight.

"See you in ten years, little one."

Harry nods and watches him walk away. In between one step another, Crowley disappears without so much as a pop.

Harry looks down at himself, clenching and unclenching his fists. He doesn't feel any different. He doesn't look any different. He hopes Crowley was an actual demon, not just some pervert who likes kissing kids. Aunt Petunia has warned Dudley against disgusting people that steal children and do horrible things to them, but Crowley hasn't kidnapped Harry and the kiss had been just like Aunt Petunia kisses Dudley, so hopefully Crowley is telling the truth.

Halfway back to Privet drive his feet are aching and his legs are tired. He wishes he could still make himself fly, so he wouldn't have to walk.

His next step is inches above the pavement. He freezes, staring down at his hovering foot with wide eyes. He raises it then puts it down again. It touches the concrete. He lifts his legs, thinks hard about flying, and—

His whole body rises up. His eyes go wide and his hands fling out to steady himself. He rises off the ground, hovering almost a foot above it. A laugh escapes him.

He looks up, leans forwards, and then he's flying, soaring along, laughing at the freedom of having air beneath him and the wind whipping through his hair.


	3. Chapter 3

He spends the day testing himself, exploring the extent of his new found power. Flying is the least of what he can do. He can turn pencils into worms with a wave of his hand, repaint his bedroom walls with a mere thought, have one of Petunia's freshly baked cupcakes in hand just by inhaling the smell wafting up the stairs and imaging it in hand. It's everything he ever wanted and more.

He can't heal himself. He tries to fix his eye and his broken arm, but no matter what he commands or wishes, his eye remains dull and useless and nothing happens to his arm to suggest it's fixed, although while it's trapped in a cast he can't really tell. He decides not to wish the cast away, just in case it's not fixed.

He jumps when Dudley slams his door open. Whatever his cousin is about to say dies before it reaches his lips. He stares around Harry's room with his jaw hanging. Harry's walls are the colour of the ocean, with shoals of fish and clusters of seaweed and huge sharks that swim around the room, his own personal sea life display. Dudley is speechless, a first in Harry's memory.

The bathroom door opens and Vernon's heavy footsteps approach Harry's bedroom on the way to the stairs. In the seconds it takes Vernon to reach Harry's open doorway, all he can think is hide me.

He's always been scared of his uncle, but he hated and was angry at him too and the hate and anger was always stronger. Now the fear is stronger, and he hates that but he doesn't know what to do about it, so all he can do is focus on the fear and the desperate need to make sure his uncle never does anything so bad to him again, and for now, that means hiding himself completely.

* * *

Across the country, a spinning top in the headmaster's office of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry stops spinning and clatters to a halt on its spindly-legged table.

* * *

Only when Vernon stops behind his son and gapes at the room does Harry think to change the walls. The fish disappear like they're being sucked into the wall itself until the room is back to the bland magnolia it normally is.

The two Dursleys look around with identical expressions of uncomprehending shock. Their eyes pass over Harry blindly, unseeing. He doesn't move, just in case.

"Dad, did you see that?" Dudley whispers.

Vernon swallows loudly. He pushes Dudley aside and steps into the room. Harry scuttles back. His footsteps make no noise on the wood floor.

"Dad?"

Vernon turns to him. "Nothing. I saw nothing, and neither did you."

"But—"

"Nothing," Vernon repeats in a tone he's never used on his son before. It silences Dudley. "You didn't see anything, son."

Dudley nods. They both leave. Harry doesn't move until he hears the _whump_ of Vernon dropping onto the sofa and Dudley beg his mother for a cupcake, which is when Petunia discovers the missing cupcake. She hollers up the stairs for Harry when Dudley insists it wasn't him, and when Harry doesn't respond to her shouts, Vernon thunders up the stairs to fetch him. Harry remains invisible. Vernon scans the room, checks under the bed, checks the other rooms, and then looks again in Harry's room. When he heads downstairs again, his face is pale. Harry follows.

"Petunia," Vernon hisses to his wife, closing the door so Dudley, in the living room, won't hear them, "did you send him out?"

"The boy? No, I haven't seen him all day."

"He's gone."

"What?"

"He's not here. He's gone."

Petunia has to sit down. "Are you sure?"

Vernon nods. "No sign of him. He's gone. Done a runner." He swallows thickly, straightens his shoulders and adds, "Good riddance, I say."

"What about... _them_?"

Harry who no idea who _they_ are, but Vernon clearly does.

"It's not our fault," he says, though he doesn't sound certain. "The boy ran off. What were we supposed to do?"

Petunia purses her lips and folds her arms, fingers tapping worriedly. "What do we tell the school? We've got to report it, Vernon. What will the neighbours think?"

"The neighbours know he's a troublesome kid. We'll play it right, say he was difficult, terrible trouble. Just another brat with no respect for authority. It's not our fault, pet. He's the one causing this mess. We're just the victims."

Petunia nods, and Harry leaves.

He steals a back pack from Dudley's room. He puts in some clothes and his baby blanket then, after some hesitation and thinking, he shrinks his figurine boxes just by putting his hands on either side and pushing gently, and then puts them in too. He carries Kiwi with him. He keeps himself invisible and makes Kiwi and the bag unseen too. He doesn't know why he didn't pack up and leave sooner, that morning as soon as he'd got back. Maybe even earlier. He should have done this long ago, but at least now he's got unlimited power to help him, and with nowhere to go and no clear idea of what he's doing, he thinks he'll need it.

He leaves through the window, flies to the end of the street and walks from there. He doesn't let himself be seen just yet. Small seven year old boys aren't meant to be walking along on their own and he doesn't want someone calling the cops, or some child snatcher grabbing him.

He goes to the bus station and sneaks onto the next one to Guildford. There, he catches another bus that takes him to the train station. He steals a magazine and a bottle of water from the shop and reads as he waits for the train to London. To him, it seems the obvious place to go when he has nowhere else; it's the capital city and if he can't make a life for himself there, where can he?

London is _massive_. It's full of people. Harry gets bumped several times just leaving the station. In the street there are even more people.

He picks a direction and walks. After a long while he finds a market place, where he steals two apples and finds a tucked away spot to eat them. Being invisible means a lot of people tend to walk into him and he has to constantly hop aside to get out of people's way.

After a few trips on the underground, a couple of bus rides, and several more hours wandering, Harry finds a street full of derelict houses where the homeless congregate. There are plenty of rats but Harry doesn't mind. He ventures into one of the houses, finds a ratty mattress and settles down. All the walking has worn him out and he falls asleep instantly, too tired to worry about his situation or what he's supposed to do with himself from now on.

He wakes up to find a man trying to take off his clothes. He screams and flings out a hand, thinking only get away from me! and the man is thrown away from him, flying through the air until he hits the wall with a thud and a groan. Harry scrambles to his feet, does up his trousers, grabs Kiwi and his bag and makes himself invisible before jumping out a glassless window and flying up to the rooftop. He clambers across it, his heart racing with fear, and jumps to the next one. He moves across them like that, not even pausing at the larger gaps because he doesn't want to lose his nerve and stop. Only when he reaches a market place does he levitate himself down to the street and start walking, stealing an orange, a handful of sweets, and a bottle of coke. He decides he's better off just staying invisible permanently. What does he need to be seen for anyway?

He steals a little mirror from a shop and keeps it for a few days until he manages to make himself stay invisible throughout the night, using it to check his reflection each morning. He sleeps on streets or in abandoned buildings. It's unpleasant at first, until he realises he can touch a finger to the floor and tell it to become soft and it will. His magic isn't like any he's read about in books at the library—he has no wand, no magic words, no spells; he just wishes for something and it happens, so he calls it Wish Magic. With it he can keep himself warm and dry, keep himself and his clothes clean, and keep his hair at a manageable length without ever having to cut it. He lets it grow out a little though; the Dursleys have always made him keep it trimmed short—not buzzcut short, but not as long as he'd like it—because they say only girls have long hair, but he lets it grow until it's almost touching his shoulders.

* * *

A week after Harry Potter vanishes from Little Whinging, someone breaks into number four, Privet Drive and brutally assaults Vernon Dursley. He's hospitalised with a broken arm, a dislocated jaw, three cracked ribs, and internal bleeding. When he's released from the hospital, the Dursleys move away from Little Whinging, both ashamed of the negative attention Harry's disappearance causes and fearful for their safety.

* * *

Harry keeps the cast on his arm for seven weeks; the doctors said it would come off after six weeks, but he leaves it a little longer just to be safe, then magics it away, wrinkling his nose at the unpleasant smell and the slough of dead skin clinging to his arm. He washes it off in the sink of a public toilet and it seems to be just fine. He wonders if that's because of natural healing or because he Wished it fixed. He doesn't fancy breaking another bone just to find out though.

He decides to change his name slightly. He doesn't want to be Harry Potter any more. Harry Potter is a pathetic little freak who gets hurt by the only family he has. He's insignificant and weak and unloved.

Harry Evans is none of those things. Harry Evans is a tough, self-sufficient wizard. Harry Evans doesn't let anyone hurt him and can do anything he sets his mind to.

He frequents libraries so he can keep learning even without school; he doesn't want to become an idiot and it gives him something to do during the day. He steals from shops and market stalls, easy when no one can see you, and sleeps anywhere he can find shelter. His magic can't create food, only transport to him food that already exists, but he can conjure almost anything else. His backpack and Kiwi go everywhere with him.

Books are his salvation. They teach him about the world and distract him during his bouts of loneliness. He tries being visible a couple of times, to join the other homeless kids, but the first time some woman tries to kidnap him, and the second time a man leers at him and offers him money if Harry lets him touch his privates. He decides he'd rather be invisible and alone than visible and have to keep watching out for kidnappers and perverts.

His favourite topic to read about is history. He likes reading about old kings and queens, wars from centuries before, the hardships and struggles from times before electricity and the ways people nevertheless made a good life for themselves. Science is interesting but when he can break half the laws of physics with just a click of his fingers, it doesn't seem so important, although sometimes he likes to read about it just to see if he can defy it. Maths is hard and he teaches himself only enough that he can do the basics; anything more complex he finds too difficult to learn just from books, and gets annoyed when he tries.

It's a year before he starts to admit there's something wrong with him. He keeps blacking out. He doesn't pass out, but he'll be in the middle of something and then he'll realise that minutes have passed. It doesn't concern him much at first, he thinks it's just his attention drifting, but after a few times when he doesn't just drift off, but passes out and wakes up with a headache, his tongue and cheeks bitten, and his right side feeling weak, he's forced to admit that whatever's causing it is definitely more than just attention loss.

Epilepsy fits his symptoms more than anything else and he spends a while worrying about it after reading about the different kinds of seizures—focal seizures, which he thinks might explain when he loses minutes of his time; tonic clonic seizures, which he's pretty sure are the reason he passes out and wakes up feeling crappy; and absence seizures, which he's not sure if he has or not as they're only brief moments of attention loss. He thinks about going to a hospital or doctors surgery, but he'll never get medical attention without an adult accompanying him. Eventually he decides there's nothing to be done and convinces himself that it'll be fine. He's managed until now; he can manage for longer.

* * *

There's some confusion and minor panic at Hogwarts when Minerva McGonagall goes through the list of possible students for the upcoming year, and finds the name Harry Potter missing. She checks the math, but he's definitely meant to be on it for the next year. There's also a name, Harry Evans, with no address. The list automatically picks up a location on students, but by Harry Evans there's only blank space, something she's never seen happen before. It's Dumbledore who considers that perhaps Harry Evans _is_ Harry Potter. It doesn't help them find him, but it does explain why Harry Potter's name has vanished.

* * *

It's shortly after his eleventh birthday when Harry finds the Leaky Cauldron. He's walking along, trying to decide whether he wants to go to the library and read or to the local hangout for teens and scare them by pretending to be a ghost, when it starts to rain and he ducks into the pub for shelter before he gets completely soaked.

He doesn't think much of it at first. The pub's patrons might be a little weirder than usual—there are a lot of cloaks instead of coats and there's just a general air of _different_ to them all—but it's warm, dry, and someone's left half a cottage pie unattended on a table. He takes the entire plate and accompanying fork, tucks himself in a corner to eat it where he won't get bumped, then leaves the now empty plate on the same table he'd taken it from.

There's a second door out of the pub which he assumes leads to a garden for outdoor drinking, at least until he goes to check whether the rain's easing off and looks into a small courtyard just in time to see a hole appear in the brick wall, widening until it's large enough for a haughty-looking blonde woman and her pointy-faced son to walk through and go into the pub. He hops out the way then quickly goes through the hole before it can close. He stops on the other side, looking around at a street unlike any he's ever seen in London.

Harry walks along, inspecting the shop displays, astonished by the strange things in the windows. Stacks of cauldrons, obscure plants and insects in jars, broomsticks, owls, robes, and all manner of bizarre instruments. The ice cream flavours at the ice cream shop include several that he's never even imagined, the sweet shop sells nothing he's ever seen before, and the toys in the toy shop are more extravagant than anything he's dreamed of playing with. When he sees a display of _Famous Figurines_ and realises there's plenty more sets that he doesn't have, he's very tempted to break his rule about only stealing what he needs, but he makes himself turn away without taking one.

He hasn't received another Christmas or birthday present since he ran away from the Dursleys. Clearly whoever brought them can't find him, which makes him a little sad. Admittedly the whole point of running away and living invisibly is to hide himself, but however angry he's ever been at his mystery gift-giver, they're still the only indication that someone, somewhere, thinks about him just a little fondly.

Flourish and Blotts delights him. Books shelve themselves and hover off the floor unquestioned, there are titles that don't even make any sense, and every single book in there is about magic.

He's always assumed there must be other magic people. He'd been able to do magic even before his demon deal so he figures he can't be the only one, that there has to be others, and sometimes he dreams about finding them, joining a secret society of wizards like in his books, but a part of him never really believes it and thinks he'd be alone forever, but now he knows he won't. He's finally found somewhere he might be able to fit in and for the first time in years he's thinking about making himself visible permanently.

He finds a book called _Hogwarts: A History_ and instantly knows it what he has to read. For years Hogwarts has been a legendary place of magic and wonder, a place Harry's dreamt of going to since he was four years old. Now he can finally find out more, learn if it's everything he dreamt it would be.

It's everything and more. Harry's not even a quarter of the way through the massive book, but he's decides he's going to Hogwarts. He doesn't even care that he hasn't got a letter. He should have, he thinks. He's more than magical enough but maybe it just can't find him while he's invisible all this time, not to mention homeless. He decides he'll just sneak onto the Hogwarts Express. He wants to see the castle, to explore its corridors and sleep in its dormitories. He doesn't know which house he'd be in but he likes Slytherin because it has a snake for a symbol, even though the Gryffindor lion is pretty cool and Godric is his favourite figurine of all the figures he's got. He wants to learn about charms and transfiguration and potions, even though he's sure he can do anything they would teach with just a wave of his hand. He wants to become a real wizard.

Two days after discovering Diagon Alley, Harry reads about himself. He learns about Voldemort and the truth behind his parents' death. He learns about his own history and his nickname and the legend that is Harry Potter.

He doesn't return to Diagon Alley for three days. He wanders normal—Muggle, he remembers—London and thinks about himself and what the books say about him. He wonders why he ended up living on the streets if he's such an amazing wizard, wonders why he'd been put with the Dursleys in the first place, wonders what the wizarding world would think if they learnt their hero is a street rat. At least now he understands the things Crowley said when they made his deal.

He returns to Flourish and Blotts to read more, learning about the war against Voldemort, but avoids as much as he can about himself. He isn't Harry Potter any more. Harry Potter got left in Little Whinging. He's Harry Evans now and Harry Evans isn't a hero. He's just a boy looking out for himself.

He visits Diagon Alley regularly over the next few weeks, learning everything he can from the books in Flourish and Blotts, visiting all the shops, and occasionally stealing left over ice cream from outside Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour.

On the first of September, he goes to King's Cross station early. He doesn't want to risk missing the Hogwarts Express and he knows that King's Cross can get busy. He already knows how to get onto platform nine and three-quarters, having read about it, but he loiters on platform nine and waits until he's seen several people slipping through the stone wall before he tries it himself.

He's never been interested in trains much. They get you places and that's all that matters, but the Hogwarts Express is beautiful, he has to admit that much. It's a large red steam engine with a long tail of carriages and something about it just screams magic. There's no denying that this machine is taking its passengers to a place far more interesting than Birmingham or Manchester or York.

Harry boards the train and settles in an empty compartment, watching through the window as children say goodbye to their parents. Other kids run up and down the train's corridor, shouting and laughing. For a second Harry doubts his decision to get on a train that will be crammed with children for the next six or so hours, but then he sees an elderly woman wave a wand and levitate a trunk onto the train and he knows he has to do this.

Twenty minutes before the train is due to leave, a weedy looking boy about the same age as Harry enters the compartment, carrying a book and wearing robes without a house crest on the front. He shuts the door against the noise of the corridor and sits down opposite Harry with a sigh. He opens his book and begins to read. Harry tries to see what it's called, but he can't read the title without alerting the boy to his presence. Whatever it is, it makes the boy snigger regularly.

Harry slips out when several other students enter the compartment ten minutes later. He doesn't want to get found and he hides in the first bathroom he finds until the train sets off. When he hears the engine whistle and the first jolt of movement, his heart jumps into his throat. This is it. There's no turning back now.


	4. Chapter 4

It takes less than an hour for Harry to decide that he does not like the Hogwarts Express. There isn't enough space on it for him to get around without bumping into people. There are children everywhere and an aging woman with a trolley comes down the carriages selling pasties, sweets, and drinks. Harry steals a handful of sweets and a bottle of orange juice. It's no easy task. Children seems to follow the cart as it progresses along the train, asking for all manner of chocolates and treats that Harry never heard of before he discovered Diagon Alley.

(He likes the Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans, even though he sometimes gets some really nasty flavours. There's a certain thrill in sticking your hand in the box without looking and never knowing what you're going to get.)

He keeps moving. It's easier to avoid people when he doesn't stay in one place. There's nowhere on the train he can stay without getting found, so he roams up and down the train, popping into the occasional carriage. He meets, so to speak, some interesting people in the process. Two identical ginger-haired boys called Fred and George are the most memorable. He first sees them getting told off by a prefect for doing something with an exploding balloon. Barely an hour later he comes across them slipping some kind of potion into a bottle of juice, which they then give to their unsuspecting younger brother called Ron. He drinks it and promptly starts burping large pink bubbles.

When Harry passes the carriage he first entered, the weedy boy has been joined by a handful of other students—a blond, pointy faced boy who Harry remembers seeing the first time he ever visited Diagon Alley; two thickset knuckle-heads stuffing their faces with junk; a pug-faced girl who laughs at everything the blonde boy says; and a bored but unremarkable looking brunette girl.

There's also Neville, who loses his toad, and Hermione, who helps him search for it, and all manner of other children that, at first, Harry's delighted to watch and listen to, but eventually he just wishes he could get off the train and away from them all, because it's depressing to see all these people being friendly with each other and not being able to join in.

He's never had a friend. Since making his own way, he's never really even spoken to anyone. People don't make a lot of conversation with invisible people. Sometimes he wishes he knew what it was like to have someone you could call a friend, but he always decides that invisible is safer, no matter how lonely it is.

It's dark when the train finally pulls into a station and Harry's never been so glad to see a platform. He's desperate to get off the train and get somewhere quiet and alone. Spending six hours in a confined space with a couple of hundred children is exhausting.

But even though he wants to find somewhere to curl up and sleep, he knows he can't. He's too close to his goal. He's nearly at Hogwarts and he's not going to risk missing it now. So he follows the rest of the kids off the train—one of the last to disembark—and follows them down the platform. At the end, a giant of a man stands with a group of the smaller kids and calls out, "Firs' years!" in a booming voice.

Harry looks between the small group with the giant and the mass of students heading in the opposite direction. It's an easy choice. For all the giant's size, he seems friendly, and Harry's spent enough time around people today. The fewer people there are, the happier he is.

The giant leads them down a path to a lake. Harry stops in mid step when they turn the last corner of the path, his breath catching in his throat.

The pictures in _Hogwarts: A History_ don't do justice. The castle is breath-taking. A huge, sprawling, sparkling mess of turrets and towers and walls. It's incredible. He can almost hear it calling out to him, he swears. This is more than just a castle. There's magic in the very foundations.

He spends so long staring at the castle that he almost misses the boats. He notices them just as the first ones set off and he takes to the air to follow them.

At the other side of the lake they clamber out of the boats and follow the giant up a set of stone steps, through two massive doors and into the castle foyer where they're greeted by a tall, stern-faced witch in forest green robes. She smiles politely as they gather in the foyer and the giant disappears, then she leads them across to a door and into a side room.

Harry stays by the door as the witch faces the rest of the children. He wants to go explore—though he has no idea where to even begin. It'll take him forever to explore this place, but he's already decided that he will discover every secret that Hogwarts castle has.

But he knows what's going on. In the Great Hall across the foyer, the other students will be gathered waiting, and soon the first years in front of him will be sorted into their houses. He's read all about it in _Hogwarts: A History_ , and sure enough the witch—who introduces herself as Professor McGonagall, Deputy Headmistress and Head of Gryffindor—gives a little speech about the houses and house points and the house cup before telling them to wait for her a moment.

She leaves and conversations break out as the students begin discussing ideas as to how they would be sorted. _Hogwarts: A History_ is notably vague about the sorting, so Harry had no more idea about what will happen than the rest of the children. Some of the ideas are unbelievably ridiculous, but they all shut up when several pearly figures drift through the wall above their heads.

Harry's read about ghosts, but that doesn't prepare him for the sight of seeing these grey, semi-transparent people suddenly float through solid bricks. At least he doesn't scream, like a few of the students. The ghosts just wave and say hello and carry on their way like everything is normal—which, Harry supposes, it probably is for them.

The Great Hall is almost as breath-taking as the view of the castle outside. Harry trails after the first years and McGonagall, taking in the floating candles, the towering windows, and of course the cloudy night sky above them. Knowing it's an enchantment and not the real thing doesn't make it any less impressive.

At the end of the hall is a small stage with the teachers' table and a three legged-stool topped by a raggedy hat. When it opens its brim and begins to sing, Harry jumps.

When the first boy goes up to get sorted, Harry's stomach turns. He isn't going to get a chance to find out what house he belongs to. For the first time, he second guesses his decision to come to Hogwarts. He thought he could find somewhere he could fit in, but how can he? He's invisible, unknown, and unwanted. He might be at Hogwarts be he'll never be a student—he won't find a family in one of the houses, he won't be able to join in with classes, he won't be able to make friends or complain about homework or sneak out on midnight adventures with his dorm mates.

Hogwarts might be a place of magic and wonder, but it was no more his home than the streets of London.

He follows McGonagall out of the hall after the sorting, exiting through a side room. McGonagall leaves the stool and the hat there, presumably to be returned to their respective homes at a later time, and returns to the hall. Harry is about to leave through the room's second door but stops.

The hat sits motionless on the stool. For the last hour it's been sitting on heads and shouting out houses. He doesn't know how it works but he thinks the hat must be sentient. The houses aren't picked at random so the hat must be intelligent to some level; surely a spell alone wouldn't be able to accurately choose a person's house?

He approaches it. Could he...? No. Even if the hat did... he couldn't really join any of the houses. He'd never be a part of them.

He reaches out. The hat is old, the material cracked, worn, and full of wrinkles. He hesitates. Should he? He's curious about what the hat would say, where it would put him, but at the same time he isn't sure he want to know there's somewhere he _could_ belong but can't.

He can't help himself. He puts the hat on and almost jerks it off again when the voice rattles inside his head.

_Well now, this is interesting. You've been missing for a long time, Harry Potter._

"That's not my name," he tells the hat.

 _No, I can see that,_ the hat says thoughtfully.

"Are you going to sort me?"

_What would be the point of that? You don't need sorting._

He knew it. He doesn't belong anywhere. Even a talking hat knows he doesn't belong.

_You're quick to jump to conclusions, Mr Evans._

"You said—"

_That you don't need sorting. You have a place to belong; everyone does. You just need to find it. I think you'll find it closer than you think._

"What do you mean?"

_You'll figure it out. For now, take advantage of this opportunity. You're in the best magical school Europe has to offer. Attend some classes, practice some magic, explore a little... Welcome to Hogwarts, Harry Evans._

The hat tells him of a room on the seventh floor, opposite a tapestry, that'll become a bedroom if he asks for it. The hat gives him directions but he still manages to get lost, probably because of the moving staircases.

He's wandering around a corridor when the students appear. Clearly the feast is over and everyone is returning to their houses. He tags onto the group in Gryffindor robes and Harry notices Fred, George, and Ron amongst the group.

The Gryffindors go to a life-size portrait of a fat lady in a pink dress. The prefect that scolded the twins on the train—also ginger, also probably related to them and Ron—says, " _Caput Draconis_ " and the portrait swings open to show a hole in the wall.

As the students scramble through the hole, Harry looks past them, seeing a cosy room with squishy arm chairs and red drapes on the wall.

He turns away. The Gryffindor common room looks nice, friendly, welcoming. But he doesn't belong there. It's not his home and it never well be.

He sleeps in a classroom. It's hard and cold but magic deals with that. He's slept in worse places.

He's woken by the sound of footsteps. He's hungry and needs to pee. The first can wait—he's gone days without food; less than twenty-four hours is nothing—but he needs to find a bathroom. It takes a while, but he eventually finds one a couple of floors down from the room he slept in. He pees, splashes some water on his face, and heads out again. There are more people around now and he tags after a group of Ravenclaw girls who lead him to the Great Hall.

His mouth waters at the sight of all the food laid out; he's never seen so much in one place. He reaches between students to snatch pieces of toast and munch on them. If anyone notices food vanishing into thin air, they don't say anything.

Four teachers are making their way down the tables, handing out timetables to all the students. Harry peers over the shoulder of a Ravenclaw first year called Lisa Turpin. She has potions for her first class and he tags along after her and her friend Padma Patil when they get up and head off.

Professor Snape, the Potions Master, is scary. He's got dark, piercing eyes that make Harry thankful he's invisible. Snape is one of those teachers that can silence a room with just a glance and he has no qualms about using this ability.

The Ravenclaws share their lesson with the Hufflepuffs and they make a simple cure for boils. Harry sits on a spare stool beside a Ravenclaw boy called Michael Corner and watches. He wishes he could join in.

Michael ruins his potion. He puts the wartcap powder in late and the potion turns into a thick green sludge. Snape bares down on Michael with his eyes glinting.

"Mr Corner, you appear to have been sorted into the wrong house. I expect this level of stupidity from Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs, but Ravenclaws are supposed to be intelligent."

Harry stares at Snape. He only has a few years experience in schools but he's pretty sure teachers shouldn't say things like that to students. No one says anything though.

" _Scourgify_ ," Snape murmurs, waving his wand over the green sludge. It disappears. "I suggest you learn to read. Perhaps then you'll be able to follow instructions properly."

They have a twenty minute break after potions. The Hufflepuffs vanish off by themselves. The Ravenclaws head for the third floor—they have Transfiguration next and collect outside the classroom to discuss the Potions lesson. They all agree that Professor Snape was too harsh, but Michael accepts that he messed up. Harry thinks they should be more bothered by Snape's behaviour, but maybe he's wrong. He hasn't been in a school since he was seven; it's not like he knows what teachers are supposed to be like.

After Transfiguration, Harry doesn't go to lunch with the Ravenclaws. He's had his fill of company for the day and he has a few apples in his backpack which he'd tucked away at breakfast. He munches on one and thinks about how he'd like to have a wand so he could try out the spell they learnt in Transfiguration. It doesn't matter than he can conjure a matchstick, turn it into a needle and back again then vanish it, all with just a thought. He wants to try out doing real magic like everyone else.

The next few days pass in much the same way as the first day. He sleeps in empty classrooms, attends classes with Ravenclaw first years, and studies in the library when he gets sick of watching people do magic. The Hogwarts library has a greater selection of books than even Flourish and Blotts and he delights in reading as much as he can, especially about history. He's always considered himself pretty informed on the subject, but now he discovers an entire secret world with a completely different history that he has to learn about and it's even more interesting than Muggle history. He's disappointed by the History of Magic classes though; he really looked forward to them—after all what could be better than being taught history by a _ghost_?—but it proves to be the dullest class in the whole school.

He eventually finds the Room of Requirement—entirely by accident. He's exploring the castle one evening when he comes across the tapestry that the Sorting Hat described. He follows the instructions it gave him and a door appears in the wall. When he opens it, he finds the most lavish bedroom he's ever laid eyes on.

There's a huge four-poster bed—big enough for three fully grown adults—with rich purple curtains and matching bed sheets. The walls are bare brick and windowless, but a twelve-candle chandelier hangs from the ceiling and the bedside tables each hold a small lamp.

There's also a small desk in the room, complete with a lamp and two drawers, and a bookshelf that holds a handful of varying-sized tomes, with space for more. A second door is set in the opposite wall. He looks through and finds a modest sized bathroom with a tub, shower, toilet, and sink.

He puts his backpack on the desk and climbs on the bed, grinning. The room is brilliant. The bed is bouncy, the duvet soft and snug, and he finds himself yawning despite himself. It's still early, but having a bedroom suddenly makes sleeping a lot more appealing.

He decides to wash up first. He strips, gets in the shower, and stands under the water for almost an hour. It's the first real shower he's had in years and only when he stands under the water does he realise how much more refreshing a proper shower is compared to keeping himself clean with Wish Magic. The room provides him with a huge fluffy white towel afterwards and he wraps himself in it, revelling in the soft material against his skin. He dries his body with it, Wishes his hair dry in an instant, then climbs on the bed. He gets under the duvet, settling down with a contented sigh. The bed is so soft that he'd quite happily lay in it forever.

That night, he sleeps better than he can ever remember sleeping.

He's delighted to wake up and find a clean set of clothes folded at the end of the bed. There's some trousers, a shirt, a black tie, a set of robes—even some clean underwear and socks. The robes have the Hogwarts crest where a house crest normally sits. It makes Harry a little sad that he doesn't have single house, but it's nice just to be able to dress like the other students.

* * *

With a room to sleep in, regular food, and clean clothes, the first half of the term passes quickly. Harry finds a good routine of classes—for the most part he attends the Ravenclaw first year lessons, but he skips some of them to go to some third year Ancient Runes and Arithmancy classes. They don't involve much magic, so they provide him with a genuine challenge. They're hard and he loves it.

He doesn't eat with the other students. The Room of Requirement provides him with breakfast and dinner. He spends the lunch hour sitting alone in the library, revelling in the peace and quiet. He's still getting used to spending so much time around other people—especially children. He doesn't enjoy being around people much when he can't interact with them; it depresses him, seeing everything he could potentially be a part of but never actually being able to join them.

He often sees Hermione Granger in the library, studying hefty books he's pretty sure aren't normal first year reading materials. She looks lonely and sometimes he actually contemplates making himself visible, just for short periods, and getting into a conversation with her about the books she reads. He reads them afterwards, and they're definitely not first year material but they're interesting and useful. But she'll probably want to know what house he's in and his name and his year and he won't be able to explain that he snuck into the school, because for all Hermione's intelligence she's a stickler for the rules and if she finds out then she'll tell a teacher.

On the other hand, he doesn't think much of Ron Weasley, who's loud, boisterous, and gets into fights with Draco Malfoy a lot. Harry doesn't think much of him either. Malfoy's just as rude as Ron, insulting anyone who isn't a Slytherin and acting like he's superior to everyone else, but at least he's open about his dislike. Ron mocks Hermione's thirst for knowledge and Neville Longbottom's clumsiness and nerves, but acts like he isn't a bully for doing so.

He doesn't mean to break into the out-of-bounds third floor corridor. He's exploring one evening and comes across a locked door; curious, he touches a hand to it, Wishes it unlocked, and hears a click. He pushes it open then realises where he must be when he lays eyes on the massive, three-headed dog standing in the middle of the corridor. He quickly leaves—the dog growls at the open door and starts advancing, perhaps sensing there's someone there even if it can't see him—Wishes the door locked again, and wonders why on earth there's an animal like that locked up in a school.

His first time on a broom is at the dead of night, during the full moon at the middle of September. The first years have already had a couple of lessons. Harry breaks into the broom shed and pulls out the least worn looking broomstick, grinning from ear to ear. He takes it to the Quidditch pitch and eagerly throws a leg over the broom. He takes a deep breath, grips it hard, and kicks off.

It's not like flying on his own, which requires control and concentration. On the broom he whizzes about with careless abandon, relying entirely on the thin stick of wood to keep him airborne. The wind rushes past his ears, his hair whips about behind him, and he feels a fierce rush of joy. Flying is, without a doubt, the most thrilling, freeing thing he's ever done.

He stays in the air until it starts to rain. He's freezing from his ears to his toes—his fingers have gone stiff around the broom handle—but he doesn't care. It's the most fun he can ever remembering having.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Text that is underlined indicates when Harry is using his Wish Magic.

Hallowe'en is a festive time in the castle. There's no trick-or-treating at Hogwarts, but there is a massive feast at the end of the day that's accompanied by ghostly entertainment. The Gryffindor house ghost, Nearly Headless Nick, re-enacts his own botched beheading whilst the Bloody Baron, the Slytherin house ghost, rattles his chains and pops up behind unsuspecting students to wail in their ears.

During dinner Harry overhears Parvati Patil and Lavender Brown mention that Hermione is in the girls' bathroom, crying because Ron insulted her earlier. Harry leaves the Great Hall before the meal's over—it's not that great hanging around during meals because he has to be careful when he reaches for food and can't sit down to eat in case someone tries to sit where he is—and he thinks of going to the bathroom with a vague notion of comforting Hermione. She doesn't have any friends and he sympathises with that, but he's still not sure about revealing himself to her.

He passes a panicked looking Professor Quirrell on his way out and he doesn't think much of it until he hears the uproar from the Great Hall. When the students start filing out and he hears of the troll, his first thought is _brilliant! I wonder if I can see it?_ and his second is _Oh, crap, Hermione!_ He wants to go after the troll, not so much because he wants to go up against it, just that he wants to see it; for all his magic and living at Hogwarts, there are still some things that feel as if they should live only in books, and trolls are one of those things, but he can't let Hermione go about unaware that there's a troll in the castle.

He pushes open the door to the girls' bathroom and slips inside. He can hear someone sniffling in one of the cubicles but that seems to be the only one occupied. He doesn't make himself visible, but he calls out.

"Hermione?"

The sniffling stops abruptly.

"Hermione, is that you?"

"Who's there?"

"It's... there's a troll in the school. Everyone's supposed to be going back to their houses."

He hears fumbling, the cubicle lock slides back, and the door opens forcefully. Hermione steps out, angry tears in her eyes and a glare on her face.

"Oh, yes, that's very—" she breaks off, eyes flicking around the seemingly empty room with surprise. Before Harry can decide whether or not to make himself visible, a foul smell and the noise of heavy, lumbering footsteps reach them.

The troll is twelve feet tall, grey-skinned, and dragging a large club by its side. Hermione shrieks, which unfortunately draws its attention to her and it lets out a roar and advances on her. She presses herself flat against the far wall, mouth hanging open in terror as she stares at it.

"HEY! You! Over here!"

The troll pauses and turns, its mean little eyes blinking stupidly at the now visible Harry, who's suddenly second guessing himself.

"Hermione, run!" he yells, backing up as the troll advances on him instead, but Hermione's frozen to the wall. Harry's own back hits a wall and he swallows, staring at the monstrous beast in front of him and wishing that trolls really did only exist in stories.

The troll lifts its club and Harry throws up a hand. "Stop!" he yells, and the troll freezes, its club still held up in the air, looking like it's nothing more than a statue. When a few seconds pass and it doesn't move, he sidles along the wall until he's out of its view, but keeps his eyes fixed on it as he shimmies over to where Hermione stands, grabbing her hand and tugging her away from the wall.

Only when they're out of the bathroom and Harry's slammed the door behind them does Hermione seem to come to herself.

"How did you do that?" she asks.

He doesn't answer. He can hear several people rushing down the next corridor and he only has time to urgently plead, "Don't tell them about me," and make himself invisible before McGonagall, Snape, and Quirrell come rushing around the corner.

"Miss Granger, what on earth are you doing here? Students are meant to be in their dormitories!"

"I..." she glances around, clearly searching for Harry, but he's completely hidden. "I was in the bathroom and there was a—there's a troll in there, Professor!"

Quirrell whimpers. Snape goes for the door, his wand in hand as he pushes it open, and McGonagall grabs Hermione's shoulder and pulls her away. Snape steps into the bathroom, looking up at the troll, which is still frozen in place.

"There was a boy," Hermione blurts, and Harry scowls angrily. "I don't know who—he came in and said there was a troll and I thought he was just trying to trick me, but then it turned up and when it came after me he shouted at it and it went after him and he just told it to 'stop' and it froze like that, and then he pulled me out of the bathroom and he heard you coming and he just vanished!"

The teachers don't seem to know whether to believe her or not. After checking she's not hurt, McGonagall sends her back to Gryffindor with a warning that they'll want to hear more later, and Harry slinks off as well, leaving the teachers to look after the troll.

* * *

Hermione jumps when a small, black-haired figure appears in the chair next to her when she's sat in the library the next morning. She's alone, as always, and hidden away in the corner.

"You told them about me," Harry says accusingly.

"Well, what else was I meant to say?" she replies a little harshly. "Who are you anyway? Where did you come from?" Then she gasps, her eyes on his forehead. "You're Harry Potter!"

He straightens in his seat and shushes her, glancing around in case anyone heard even though the only other people there are Madam Pince, at the front desk, and a few sixth years over in the Charms section.

"That's not my name. How did you know anyway?"

"Your scar..."

He scowls and Wishes it invisible. Hermione blinks then leans forward, peering at his forehead and frowning. "But I thought..."

"Stop staring," he snaps at her.

She blinks, realises what she's doing, and leans back, blushing a little. "Sorry. But you are, aren't you?"

"Technically. But I don't use that name anymore and you can't tell anyone."

"But you've been missing for years, haven't you? I've read about you in—"

"Yeah, so have I," he interrupts, scowling. "I'm still missing and I want to stay that way. If the teachers find out I'm here, they'll throw me out."

"Why would they do that?"

"I'm not a student. I never got a letter. I snuck into the school so you can't tell them I'm here. I just thought I should probably let you know that I'm real, in case you started thinking you just imagined me yesterday because of shock or whatever."

"How did you stop the troll?" she asks curiously, then she adds, "Thank you, by the way, for saving me."

"It's fine," he says awkwardly. "It's called Wish Magic."

"I've never heard of that."

"I don't know if anyone else can do it. I named it myself. Do you promise not to tell anyone about me?"

Hermione bites at her lip, fighting against her natural urge to report rule breakers, but he did save her yesterday and if he hadn't she might well have been killed before the teachers arrived, so she nods. "Alright. What name do you use? Why don't you use Harry Potter?"

"Harry Evans. That was my mum's maiden name. I just don't want to be Harry Potter."

Hermione desperately wants to ask more questions about why, but she holds them back and instead asks, "What's Wish Magic?"

"It's how I do magic. I Wish things, and they happen."

"So you just wished for the troll to stop?"

"Pretty much. Watch." He glances around, double checking that Madam Pince wasn't approaching, touches his finger to the table. A flower grows out of the centre and Hermione gasps, watching the stalk sprout up, two leaves growing off it, and a white rose head blossoms on top.

"Oh, wow," Hermione breathes. She reaches towards it, running her finger along the petals. "Oh my god, it's completely real. But how... I mean, you just wished for it?"

"Like I said, Wish Magic."

Footsteps approach their corner and Harry turns invisible and Wishes the flower away just as Madam Pince rounds into their area, a pile of books floating alongside her. She nods politely to Hermione, flicks her wand to direct the books onto their shelves, and then walks away again.

"I should go," Harry's disembodied voice says when she's gone. Hermione starts as he pushes the chair back.

"Are you invisible?"

"Yeah. It's how I hide."

"Where are you going? Do you have to leave?"

"It's not really a good idea for me to stay here. Someone might see or hear me."

Hermione grabs her bag from the floor. "We can go somewhere else," she suggests, then adds a little nervously, "I mean, if you don't mind. It's nice to talk to someone, that's all. But if you don't want to, that's okay."

"No," he says quickly. "I mean, I don't mind. We can go somewhere else."

He thinks there's a chance this is a bad idea, but he's not sure how so for now he doesn't care, because he finally has someone he can talk to.

"Where shall we go?"

He thinks of the Room of Requirement, but he doesn't trust her enough to give up that secret, so he suggests they find an empty classroom. When they get there, she awkwardly asks what he wants to talk about and he just as awkwardly mentions the last book he saw her reading, and that's enough to throw them into an hour long debate about various transfiguration theories.

Later, when their conversation finally lulls, Hermione asks, "If you're not a student, where do you sleep at night? Do you sneak into the dorms?"

"I sleep in a classroom," he lies. "I can make the floor soft and conjure a blanket and pillow so it's fine."

"Tell me more about your magic. How exactly does it work—do you need to Wish outlou- oh wait, no, you made that rose without saying anything. But do you need to Wish certain words to make it work?"

"Not really. I just need to want it—really want it. Just idly wishing, like daydreaming, doesn't work. It's kind of hard to explain, I guess, and I never really thought about the mechanics of it because I just do it. It's like walking—your brain is sending signals to legs to move in a certain way, but you're not really thinking about it, you just do it, you see?"

Hermione nods understandingly. "Do you have any limits? Are there things you can't do?"

"So far the only thing I've not managed to do is heal myself if I get sick. I can heal a cut or bruise or whatever, but I can't cure a cold or my eye or anything like that."

He's had a more than a few miserable weeks in the past living on the streets with a raging cold, desperately Wishing for his nose to be clear and his throat no longer hurting, but nothing worked which only left him feeling more miserable and downtrodden.

"That's probably a limit on healing. I've not read into that yet, but it's possible self-healing simply isn't possible even with normal magic. I've heard there's a potion for curing colds but nothing about spells. I'll go to the library and research it."

"I can do that. I've got more time than you, y'know, with homework and everything."

"Oh, I suppose," she admits a little glumly. "You'll share what you find though, won't you?"

He nods, smiling. "Promise."

"Can I ask... your eye, is that—I mean... was that from when You Know Who...?"

He looks down at his feet, poking at his trainers. "No, but I don't really want to talk about it."

"Okay," she says quickly. "Sorry."

He waves the apology off. "It's fine. I figured you probably would ask."

* * *

Dumbledore sits in his office, staring at the silver spinning top on his desk. The portraits tell him that it moved the night before, right around dinner time, and Dumbledore's heard from McGonagall about the dark-haired boy that supposedly saved Hermione Granger from the troll. The top's spun only sporadically in the years since Harry Potter went missing from his aunt and uncle's house, occasionally whirling to life only to drop still once more within mere hours.

As he watches the top fall still for the second time that day after over two hours of activity, he wonder not for the first time if maybe it's simply broken. He designed it himself to monitor Harry's very life and the only time it should ever fall still is if Harry dies. When it stopped working the day he disappeared from Little Whinging, Dumbledore refused to believe that Harry was dead. It's ridiculous really, given that he created one for himself as well and done everything he could think of, short of tampering with the device itself, to trick it into thinking he was dead and it continued to spin.

So Harry's should be working as well, but he prefers to tell himself that it's broken than imagine that Harry is dead. But with each time it starts up only to stop again he has to wonder, because he doesn't know what could possibly cause it to behave so erratically. Not that this means he accepts Harry as dead. He won't accept that until he sees a body for himself. He's not sure if the willingness to doubt his power rather than believe Harry dead is a sign of old age, or a sign of how he's as star-struck as everyone else by putting so much hope for the true destruction of Voldemort on a boy and a prophecy.

* * *

The first time Harry tries to use the Room of Requirement but finds it blocked, he panics. He's started leaving Kiwi and his figurines in there so he's not carrying them around all the time, but he can't stand the thought of losing them, especially Kiwi. He spends half an hour pacing in front of the section of wall, pressing his hands to it, Wishing the room into being, but nothing works until a door appears suddenly. Before he can grab the handle, it opens and a couple of ruffled looking seventh years step out, a girl and a boy. They walk away, satisfied expressions on their faces, and Harry asks the Room to become his usual bedroom. When he gets inside, everything is as it should be, his figurines and Kiwi safe and untouched. Even so, he clutches the bear tightly to his chest and for a few days takes her with him when he goes out.

A week later, Gryffindor and Slytherin have the first Quidditch match of the season. Harry watches from the ground, equal parts delighted and envious. He wants to be up there with them, flying in a team, working together to win a match.

Slytherin win despite Gryffindor's excellent teamwork and great flying. They work together well and Harry thinks they're a great team, but Nick Coleman, their seeker, just doesn't match up to Slytherin's Terrence Higgs and it loses them the game.

Harry flies that night. It's not as fun as it usually is.

He researches healing magic and discovers that self-healing is only possible for minor injuries like he's done. When it comes to colds and illnesses, it takes someone else to do it and often times potions as well or instead, which has a certain amount of logic even if it is annoying. He discovers a potion for epilepsy, but it's far too complex for him to brew. He specifically checks to see if there is a magical solution to his problem, but like Muggle medicines, magic only provides a regularly taken potion that can help prevent seizures but not fix the problem completely.

He starts having regular study sessions with Hermione. It's fun and he enjoys having a friend for the first time in his life. Hermione's equally pleased to have a friend, even if it's not one she can sit with in classes or spend much time with; it's still a step up from the complete loneliness from the start of term.

"Harry? Harry!"

Harry blinks, looks at Hermione. "What?"

"Are you okay? You just... you sort of blacked out for a minute, I think."

He hadn't thought about his seizures when he befriended Hermione. He just doesn't consider that it would be an issue, but now he's wondering just what'll happen if he has a bad one while he's with her. She might be willing to keep his secret for now, but if he has a tonic clonic seizure she might freak out and fetch a teacher for help. It'd be understandable, but not good for Harry.

"I'm fine. Really."

She frowns at his insistence but doesn't push the issue, asking instead, "Have you ever been in the third floor corridor?"

"The forbidden one? Once. Why?"

"At the start of the year I got lost and ended up there—completely by accident, I wasn't trying to break the rules—and well, I just wondered what you thought about the trap door."

Harry looks at Hermione, frowning. "What trap door?"

"Didn't you notice it? Under that great dog, there was a trap door."

"I was a bit preoccupied with the dog, got out pretty quick. But a trap door's not that surprising in this place. I mean, compared to staircases that _move_..."

She laughs. "I know. But it's just, did you hear about the break-in to Gringotts during the summer?"

"No. I thought no one could break in there."

"No one should, but it happened _and_ they got away. The papers said that the vault they tried to steal from had been emptied the very same day. I think it's possible that whatever's in there might be what's hidden under that trap door."

Harry frowns, thinking about it. "Bit of a stretch, isn't it? I mean, there's no connection between the trap door and the Gringotts break-in."

"That we know of. Also, I know that Professor Snape tried to get past that dog not long after Hallowe'en."

"That still doesn't create a connection between Gringotts and the trap door. If Snape tried to get past it, then clearly there's _something_ down there, but if you ask me it seems unlikely that it's the same as whatever might have been at Gringotts."

* * *

Hermione and Neville aren't really friends. Hermione helps Neville in classes sometimes and they greet each other with smiles in the morning, but they're not what anyone would call proper friends. It's Neville who finally decides to change that, sick of being left out by the rest of the first year boys. Ron and Seamus make fun of him sometimes and although Dean doesn't, he doesn't stand up for Neville either. He knows that befriending Hermione will probably mean a lot of hours spent in the library studying rather than doing other friend activities, but he figures it's worth it and it certainly wouldn't hurt him to study more given how he's the worst in almost all their classes.

He surprises Hermione when he stops her as she's leaving for a study session with Harry and asks if he can join her. She feels bad about turning him down, but she knows Harry won't show himself if she turns up with someone else. She does promise him they can study another time and she means it.

Their friendship is tentative at first, and, as Neville expects, mostly focused around studying, but as the weeks go on and they get to know each other a little better they spend a less time studying and more time just hanging out, and by the time Christmas rolls around, Neville's able to go home and tell his grandmother with complete honesty that he's made a friend.


	6. Chapter 6

Harry gets bored in the Christmas holidays. He's grown used to spending time with Hermione and with her gone and lessons stopped for a few weeks, he has nothing much to do with himself, so he explores a lot, venturing to places in the castle he hasn't been before.

It's Christmas Eve when he finds the mirror. It sits in an empty classroom, like someone put it there to keep it out of the way, and he looks closer just because he can't imagine why someone would try and hide a mirror. It's impressive, he supposes, as far as mirrors go, standing on two clawed feet and sporting an ornate gold frame, with the words _Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi_ inscribed along the top. He goes to it, standing in front of it and making himself turn visible, just because it's fun to watch sometimes, and then his heart almost jumps out of his chest because the figure in the mirror isn't him.

Except after looking for a moment, he realises it is. Not him as he is now, but him older—maybe twenty or so. He's got a wand in his hand, a healthy glow to his face, and a broad grin. He looks happy and Harry turns away, cloaking himself in invisibility as he runs from the room.

He doesn't think about his demon deal much. At first it doesn't mean much to him, but as the years go by and the time until his ten years are up get shorter, thinking about the demon deal only becomes painful. He doesn't regret it—he still believes the power he gained is more than worth his soul—but every time he thinks of it he remembers that he's never going to grow up properly. He'll die before he even turns eighteen and that saddens him. He can't stand looking in the mirror at an image of what he could be, knowing he never will.

He remembers the discussion with Hermione about the three-headed dog on the third floor and decides to go and have another look, this time paying attention to the floor underneath the dog. He entertains the thought of getting past the dog and sneaking down to find out what's hidden there, but he doesn't quite fancy his chances against the slathering animal just yet for what might be nothing.

He goes flying one day and he doesn't realise he's having a seizure until he hits the ground and his leg breaks with a crack that echoes through the night. The broom is still hovering some twenty feet above him. When he cries, he tells himself that it's because of the pain in his leg and not because he's realised he'll never be able to play Quidditch or fly properly.

He discovers that fixing broken bones is within his range of healing skills and he's glad for that. He's not sure what he'd do if he couldn't. He's still left with an ache that doesn't go away until he's hobbled up to the Room of Requirement, had a long hot bath, and slept for eight hours.

* * *

In February, there's a Hogsmeade weekend for the older kids. Harry sneaks out with them. He spends the morning wandering the village, looking in all the shops, stealing a box of Every Flavour Beans from Honeydukes and an unattended butterbeer from the Three Broomsticks, and visits the Shrieking Shack, which doesn't look haunted or scary in the bright winter sunlight.

In the afternoon he walks out past the edge of the village and teaches himself to Apparate. He's read everything about it that he can find in the library—not because he doubts he can do it, but just because disappearing and reappearing somewhere else is the kind of thing that one should be careful about. He doesn't want to get splinched. Aside from not being sure if he could put himself together again, he's not entirely sure any unattached body pieces would remain invisible... and if they did, they might become invisible to _him_ , which would make finding them quite difficult.

The first time he just Apparates from one side of the path to the other, keeping it short just in case something does go wrong. He does it without splinching and cheerfully does it again as celebration. Next he Apparates to the village and back again, then to the edge of Hogwarts. He keeps going, Apparating further and further until he's in Diagon Alley, and then he Apparates all the way back to Hogwarts.

He tries Apparating directly into Hogwarts itself, despite knowing there are Anti-Apparition Spells up to prevent it, and it's like throwing himself against a brick wall.

He wakes up on the side of the path between Hogwarts and Hogsmeade, blood in his mouth and a familiar sensation of weakness along his right side. He moves himself further into the trees lining the path and sits leaning against one, hugging himself as he waits for the weakness to fade and wondering if the seizure was brought on by the Apparating. He supposes that the physical stress of such an activity might precipitate one, or it's just the effect of trying to get through anti-Apparition wards, or maybe it's only because he did it so much, bouncing back and forth too often within a short space of time. He hopes, unless it's simply random, that it's because of trying to break into the castle or doing it too much; if it's caused by the simple act of Apparating, he's going to be really annoyed. Being able to Apparate is an excellent skill that he doesn't want to have to give up.

A couple of days later he's having a study session with Hermione when she asks, "Harry, can I ask you a question?"

"Sure."

"Where did you live before you came to Hogwarts?"

He hesitates to answer, wondering whether he should lie, but he decides there's probably not much point.

"London, on the streets. Before that I was with my aunt and uncle."

"Why did you stop living with your aunt and uncle?"

Harry stares at the Herbology textbook in front of him, unsure again if he should lie or not.

"Did they die?" she asks gently and he shakes his head then bites his lip, thinking maybe he should have nodded instead. "Did you run away?"

Harry closes the book and gets to his feet. "I have to go."

"Wait, Harry! I'm sorry, I didn't—I won't ask again."

"Don't—it's fine. I'll see you next week. I have to go."

He vanishes himself and hurries out. He knows he's being irrational, that Hermione's perfectly justified in her curiosity—they're friends, they're supposed to tell each other about their lives—but bringing it up so suddenly just makes him too edgy.

He turns up late to their next meeting, a first for him, and hesitates to go inside. He stands outside the door of their chosen classroom for several minutes before deciding to go in—they change it each week, not wanting anyone to notice Hermione repeatedly using the same classroom and deciding to investigate. Hermione stands by the window, looking out across the grounds at the Hufflepuff Quidditch team practice, and doesn't notice him come in. She jumps when he speaks.

"My uncle used to hit me."

Hermione turns but Harry's staring at the stone floor like it holds the answers to the universe.

"Ever since I can remember, he'd hit me if I did anything wrong, or even if he just thought I did something wrong, or... anyway, when I was seven he got really drunk and... and I ended up in hospital. That's why my eye doesn't work. Afterwards I ran away and started using my Wish Magic to hide myself."

He's not sure what to expect, but it's not to have Hermione throw herself at him, arms wrapping around his neck in a fierce hug that makes him flinch.

"That's awful," she says in a choked voice, and he realises she's crying. He pats her awkwardly on the back.

"It's fine, really. It was years ago. Please don't cry," he begs, half because he doesn't know how to comfort her and half because it's making his own throat tighten uncomfortably. Unfortunately his words only seem make her cry harder. He swallows thickly and blinks several times, forcing himself to not cry and focusing on her. "Really, Hermione, I'm... I'm okay. You don't have to cry."

She eventually draws back, wiping at her eyes. He conjures a tissue and stands awkwardly as she blows her nose, not sure if he's supposed to acknowledge that she's crying or pretend like everything's fine.

"But what about your aunt?" she asks. "Didn't she do anything to stop him?"

"Not really."

"That's horrible. I can't believe anyone would do that."

He shrugs. He knows it's horrible, in the sense that he hated it happening and he knows it's a bad thing, but he doesn't really see it as horrible in the same way she does. For him, it was just the way things were and to have someone crying over him because of it makes him feel uncomfortable.

* * *

In March Harry's walking out the library behind Hermione and Neville—neither of them aware he's there as he's not telling Neville about himself, but he still likes to hang around them sometimes—and they happen across Draco Malfoy and his two cronies, Crabbe and Goyle.

"Oh good," Malfoy drawls with a sneer, twirling his wand between his fingers, "I was looking for someone I could use this new curse on that I just learnt." He points his wand at Neville. " _Locomotor Mortis!_ "

Instantly Neville's legs spring together. His arms flail as he loses his balance and he knocks into Hermione, the both of them falling to the floor while the three Slytherins laugh. Hermione pushes Neville off her, ignoring his apologies as she digs out her wand to cast the counter-curse for him.

"I don't know how you ended up in Gryffindor, Longbottom," Malfoy sniggers. "You must have bribed the hat; I've seen rats braver than you."

"How'd you get into Slytherin, Malfoy?" Harry whispers from behind him, making the blond boy jump. "Because I've seen pigs more cunning than you."

Malfoy whirls, eyes scanning the corridor for the source of the voice. "Who's there?" he demands. "Show yourself!"

Only Hermione doesn't look confused by his words. She finally gets her wand out and casts the counter-curse on Neville and the two of them get to their feet while Malfoy's still looking for Harry. Harry flicks his wrist and Crabbe and Goyle suddenly trip over even though they're standing still, hitting the floor with heavy thuds. Malfoy whirls again, glaring at Hermione and Neville and raising his wand, but before he can do anything, Harry hits him with a Leg-Locker Curse just as he'd done to Neville, and the Slytherin topples over with his friends. Harry crouches down by his head.

"There's nothing cunning or ambitious about being a bully, Malfoy."

"Granger, Longbottom, detention!"

Harry jumps up, moving quickly out the way as Snape stalks down the corridor towards the group, drawing his wand to free Malfoy from the Leg-Locker curse. Harry watches guiltily as Snape takes points from Gryffindor when Hermione and Neville try and claim they hadn't attacked the three Slytherins, making biting remarks about how they're bullies and liars. When Hermione and Neville finally get sent on their way, Harry follows them.

"Go ahead, Neville, I just need a minute. I'll catch up."

When Neville's rounded the corner, Hermione turns, eyes scanning the corridor. Harry double checks there's no one there before materialising.

"You got me a detention!"

"I'm sorry!"

"Snape thinks I'm a bully! I can't believe you! I've never bullied anyone in my life!"

"I was standing up for you two! I didn't mean for that to happen. I'm sorry, I really am."

"Well don't bother next time," she snaps, turning on her heel and stalking away.

"Hermione," he tries, but she doesn't stop and he has to quickly hide himself as a Hufflepuff turns into the corridor.

She doesn't turn up at their next study session. Harry sits for hours in the classroom they use, hoping maybe she's just late, but eventually has to admit that she's not coming and he slouches off feeling miserable and guilty.

A week passes, then another, and Hermione shows no sign of forgiving Harry. She isn't in the library as often and when she is it's always with Neville, giving Harry no chance to talk to her. He's seriously thinking of maybe sneaking into Gryffindor common, or joining a Gryffindor class to at least pass a note to her, but one day he finds her in the library alone, sat at the table where he first spoke to her after Hallowe'en, a book open in front of her but her fingers tapping the table and a second chair pulled out next to her. At first he wonders if it's Neville's, but he hasn't seen the other boy anywhere in the library and only Hermione's book bag is on the floor.

When he sits down, she immediately puts down the book and turns to him, talking as soon as he makes himself visible.

"I still don't forgive you," she says quickly, cutting him off in mid apology, "but we finally had our detention last night and I had to talk to you. That dog on the third floor is called Fluffy and it's definitely guarding something and that something is to do with Professor Dumbledore and a man named Nicolas Flamel."

"How do you know?"

"We had detention with Hagrid and I accidentally let slip that I knew about the dog. I thought I was going to get another detention but he hardly even told me off, and he obviously knew what was down there—he was all edgy and nervous—so I tried asking about it and he let slip that name. He shut up after that, but this is something."

Harry nods in agreement. "I'll say—Nicolas Flamel's the only known maker of the Philosopher's Stone."

He knows that because Flamel causes arguments among historians about whether he should be included on lists of famous historical figures, some saying he should because he was born in the fourteenth century while others say he shouldn't because he was still alive and shouldn't be classified as a historical figure until he was dead.

"Do you think that's what Fluffy's guarding?" Hermione asks.

"I... well, it's possible I guess. It's certainly the sort of thing that someone would want to steal, and something that would need protecting, but what would it be doing in a school?"

"Hagrid said that whatever was under the trapdoor was between Flamel _and_ Professor Dumbledore. If they're friends, Flamel might have asked Professor Dumbledore to look after the Stone for him. Hogwarts is one of the safest places in the country."

"Didn't you say that Snape tried to get past Fluffy back on Hallowe'en? Do you think he's trying to steal it?"

"He can't be. He's a teacher, he wouldn't do that."

"He's not exactly a nice teacher. He's horrible to everyone."

"He's just strict."

"McGonagall's strict. Snape's mean. He's made Susan Bones and Hannah Abbott cry in Potions more than once. What kind of teacher does that?"

She lets it go, but only so she can open the book in front of her and push it towards him.

"I think you have epilepsy."

He blinks, startled by the change of topic, and looks down at the book, which has multiple little sticky notes marking the pages.

"Those times when you sometimes zone out, I've been looking into it since it happened a few weeks ago and your face did this weird twitchy thing and so did your hands, and I think you might be having seizures—not tonic clonic ones, like most people probably think of seizures where your whole body shakes, but small ones. They're called focal seizures. Epilepsy can be caused by brain trauma and after what you told me about your uncle, I think that might be it."

He's impressed at her dedication to the research and touched by her concern, but he can tell by the look in her eye that she wants him to get help.

"I'm fine, Hermione. It's just focal seizures."

"It can be dangerous if it's left untreated."

"I'll be fine. You can't tell anyone, Hermione, please."

"You know they might not throw you out."

"Yeah, right. Why would they let me stay?"

"You've got magic. If you told them you're here, they might offer you a place. Or maybe you could go to another school. You could get help for your epilepsy, if that's what it is. Dumbledore would help you. You're the Boy Who Lived; they wouldn't just throw you back to the streets."

"I don't know. I don't really trust anyone. It's safer if I just stay hidden. It's easier."

"Are you scared they'd send you back to your uncle?"

"I'd just run away again."

"They wouldn't, not after you told them what he did."

Harry shrugs. "Maybe one day," he says, just to appease her. She opens her mouth to try and convince him again and he looks at her pleadingly. "Please, Hermione. I'll think about it, okay? But I can't do it right now. I'm not ready yet."

She sighs, looking at him sadly, but nods. "Alright. But just so you know, when do want to tell someone, I'll come with you. You don't have to do it alone."

He's honestly touched by that and gives her a warm, heartfelt smile.

* * *

Several weeks later, Harry surprises Hermione by saying, "I want to tell Neville about me."

Hermione looks up from her Charms notes in surprise. They're studying even more lately; end of year exams are two months away but Hermione's already wants to start going over everything she's learnt in the past year.

"You do?"

"You trust him, don't you?"

"Of course. I just didn't think you did."

"I think he should know. Bring him to our next session?"

"Are you going to tell him you're Harry Potter, or just that you're here?"

"Probably just that I'm here. I don't know; I'll see how it goes."

They meet a few days later and it goes well. Neville's torn between nervous fear at such blatant rule-breaking and what it means for him if anyone finds out he knows and isn't reporting it, and a jittery feeling of joy at being trusted with this big secret and a determination not to disappoint Hermione and Harry by telling anyone. There's also a slight feeling of smug satisfaction whenever he looks at Ron, Seamus, and Dean, knowing he's been trusted with this big secret and they haven't.

The next few weeks pass unremarkably. In mid-may, Hagrid's house nearly burns down and Harry's not sure whether to believe the rumours that he'd been trying to raise a dragon.

The second-to-last Quidditch match of the season is the next Saturday, between Slytherin and Hufflepuff. Slytherin flatten Hufflepuff and they're clear winners for the Quidditch cup; the last match that'll be between Gryffindor and Ravenclaw will only determine who comes second, third, and fourth. Harry doesn't care about the cup, he's just happy from spending time in the sun, watching people fly, and relaxing for a while. He hums cheerfully as he returns to his room afterwards.

But he gets back to the Room and his cheerfulness evaporates in an instant because there's a man sat in the chair at his desk.


	7. Chapter 7

The man has fluffy blond hair, blue eyes, and a welcoming smile. He's maybe thirty, a little taller than average height, and wearing a dark green cloak with pale green runes etched into it.

"Hello, Harry."

Harry debates running—he's still invisible so the man can't know for sure that it's him—but his curiosity gets the better of him. Who is this man? How does he know Harry's living here? What does he want? Most importantly though: is he a threat to Harry?

"Who are you?"

"I'm the Assistant, and it's terribly rude to be invisible while you're having a conversation with someone."

Harry hesitates before making himself visible, but keeps ready to hide at any moment. "What sort of name is that?"

"Hey, don't diss the name. It's cool."

"It's weird."

"You have no appreciation for clever names."

Harry just raises his eyebrow sceptically. "What are you doing here?"

"How much do you know about the Philosopher's Stone?"

"I'm not telling you. I don't even know who you are or why you're here or how you knew I was here."

"I'm not here to hurt you, Harry. What do you know about the Stone?"

"Why should I tell you anything when you won't tell me?"

"Alright, how about this: a question for a question. I answer yours, you answer mine. Fair?"

"I go first."

The man nods, leans back in his seat, and gestures for Harry to start.

"How'd you know I was here?"

"I tracked you with magic. What do you know about the Stone?"

"That's a really vague question."

The Assistant smiles but concedes the point. "Do you know where it is?"

"Under the school, through the trap door. Why did you track me down? No one's ever done that."

"I needed to know what you know about the Stone. Do you know who's after it?"

"Maybe Snape, but I don't know for sure. Why are you asking me about it?"

"Voldemort wants it. You need to stop him before he gets it."

Harry stares at the Assistant, who smiles. "Yeah, something like that."

"But—what—I mean, Voldemort's _dead_."

"Temporarily incapacitated is my preferred phrase, and if he gets his hands on the Stone he'll be permanently fit, able-bodied, and ruthlessly brutal."

"Then you need to do something!"

The Assistant laughs dryly. "No, I don't meddle. Well, I do, but only in terms of telling people things they might otherwise have figured out themselves. Point being, I don't stop him. You do."

"But I'm just a kid, I can't stop Voldemort!"

"You already did once."

Harry scowls and looks away. "That doesn't count. I don't know how I did that. It was a fluke, it wasn't me."

The Assistant shrugs. "You've still done it, and now you're ten years older and wielding some serious firepower. You think you can't take him?"

"He's _Voldemort_. You Know Who. He Who Must Not Be Named. He terrorised the wizarding world for eleven years. I've read all about it. His reign was one of the darkest times in wizarding history."

"And if he gets the Stone, that's going to happen all over again." He leans forward, resting an elbow on his knee as his now very serious eyes settle on Harry. "Look, stop him, get someone else to stop him, or sit back and do nothing, but if Voldemort gets the Stone the world is going to turn very dark, very quickly. Trust me, I know that all too well."

"Who _are_ you?"

The Assistant straightens, smiling again. "Much too early to be telling you that. You've got two weeks to think about what you want to do. He'll go for the Stone on the night of the fourth of June."

"How do you know that?"

"I know a lot of things. Remember, two weeks. I'll see you again sometime." The Assistant gets to his feet, straightening his cloak and brushing a strand of blond hair from his forehead. "By the way, next time someone questions you, don't give up so much information so easily. Be stingy."

He touches two fingers to his head in a salute and heads out the door, turning invisible just as he opens it and walks out, leaving Harry to stare after him, baffled and shocked.

* * *

Harry doesn't mention the Assistant to Hermione and Neville until the fourth. He doesn't know whether to believe what he said but as he sits in the library that morning—he's not bothering with any classes right now; end of year exams are happening so he has nothing to gain from them—he realises that he has to at least consider the possibility that the Assistant told the truth and Voldemort will try and steal the Stone that night. Better to do something and find out the Assistant lied than do nothing and let the Stone be stolen.

He tells Hermione and Neville about it as they sit in an abandoned classroom, just relaxing now the two Gryffindors have finished their exams. They exchange sceptical looks and Neville expresses doubt about the Assistant, but they both agree that something has to be done. After some convincing from Harry, the two of them go to Professor McGonagall and tell her they think someone's planning to steal the Stone, only to get sent away with a stern look and the information that Dumbledore's left the school.

"What now?" Neville asks in a whisper just outside McGonagall's office. Harry's with them, invisible and pressed against the wall where no one will bump into him.

"We go down the trap door," Harry says, equally quiet. "We have to stop Voldemort."

"Us?" Hermione squeaks.

"There's no one else. Dumbledore's gone and McGonagall won't listen. If Voldemort gets the Stone, the whole world's damned. We have to do it."

Harry sneaks into Gryffindor tower with them that evening after dinner. The common room is crowded and he has to fly up and hover by the ceiling to stay out of the way. It's alright at first; he watches the Weasley twins get on Ron's nerves, eavesdrops on gossipers, and steals a chocolate frog when a seventh year brings down a huge box of sweets to share as celebrations for finishing her NEWTs. But eventually it gets boring and he floats around the ceiling, impatiently waiting for everyone else to go to bed.

When only Hermione and Neville are left, he lowers himself to the floor and makes them invisible too, but as they vanish from his sight he realises that making them invisible to each other might make things tricky.

"Hang on." He Wishes and they come back into view.

"But we need to be invisible," Neville says, "or we'll get caught."

"We should be invisible to everyone else," Harry says unsurely, "just not to each other."

"'Should'?" Hermione repeats, picking up on his hesitant tone.

"Well we've got no one to try it on and we shouldn't really waste time talking about it. My magic's never failed me before, it shouldn't do now."

They reach the third floor without trouble and come to a stop outside the locked door. Harry tells the other two to wait while he deals with Fluffy and creeps through the door. The dog growls and he's not sure if it's because he can see Harry or smell him or just because he saw the door open. Harry cautiously approaches, Wishing furiously for the dog to just curl up and go to sleep. It does exactly that and only when the animal's snoring loudly does Harry back up and pull the door open.

"C'mon," he whispers, beckoning the other two inside. "Let's get down there quick. I don't know how long he'll stay asleep."

When they open the trap door, they can see only darkness. There's no ladder, rope, or any other way for them to get down there.

"I guess we jump," Hermione says, and Neville looks faint.

"I can fly down first," Harry suggests. "We don't know how deep it is and I don't want either of you getting hurt."

"Can you fly us?" Hermione asks, and then gives a startled yelp as she lifts off the floor.

"Yes," Harry says with a small grin.

"Put me down!" she hisses, glancing nervously at Fluffy. "No, I don't like that. You go first, check it's safe, then we jump."

"I think I'd prefer he made me fly," Neville says.

Harry flies down carefully until he sees the plant-covered floor below. He zips back up, tells them about it, and Hermione decides to jump down first, then Harry and Neville follow.

"Don't land on the plant!" Hermione cries as they slowly come down, struggling away from the creeping vines that try to wrap around her ankles. "It's Devil's Snare. It'll kill you."

"'Kay," Harry replies, concentrating on not dropping Neville or losing control of himself. When they've landed by the damp wall, beyond the plant's reach, Neville grins.

"That wasn't so bad. Better than flying on a broom."

They move on down a passageway until they reach a chamber full of winged keys.

"We're doomed," Neville moans, catching sight of the brooms they're obviously supposed to use to catch the right key. "We can't fly well enough to catch a key. You'd have to be a Seeker or something."

Harry shoots him an amused look. "I can fly perfectly well with or without a broom, and on top of that, I don't even need a key."

He goes to the door, presses his palm to it, and it swings open.

"You know," Hermione says conversationally as they head through, "if we weren't currently breaking about fifty school rules and trying to save a powerful magical object from the darkest wizard in history, I might be annoyed at how easily you do everything."

" _Now_ we're doomed," Neville says just a minute later when they're standing on the chessboard with the white pieces blocking their way to the other door. "How are you going to get us past this? I don't know about you, but I'm really bad at chess and if we have to play to get across..."

"We just need to get past the white pieces, so... we fly."

"What, over the top?"

Harry nods.

"What if they attack us when we come down on the other side?" Hermione asks.

"We go fast, and we should still be invisible to other people," Harry adds. "I haven't dropped that so hopefully..."

He trails off. The others don't look reassured.

He doesn't let their feet touch the ground until he's opened the door on the other side and they rush through quickly, shutting the door behind them and quickly moving down a short passage to another door. Beyond that one is a troll—larger and smellier than the one at Hallowe'en, but thankfully already knocked out.

"He's already here," Hermione's muffled voice says as they edge past it with their robes pulled up over their mouths and noses. "You Know Who's already come through."

Harry and Neville say nothing until they've stepped into the last room—and fires spring up in front of both the door behind them and the one ahead. Hermione and Neville look pale and nervous. Until now, the idea of Voldemort getting the Stone was just a theory, a possibility, but now they know for sure.

"I was going to say we should go back," Neville says in a shaky voice, "but I guess we can't."

Harry approaches the table set up in the middle of the room with seven potion-filled bottles and piece of parchment on top. He picks up the parchment, reading the riddle and glancing at the bottles, then at the fire. He's not sure he can sneak past this one.

Hermione on the other hand, takes up the challenge gladly. After a while thinking, she points to two of the vials and says surely, "That one takes us forward, that one back."

The one that takes them forward only has enough for one mouthful, but the other has more than enough for two. Harry takes a deep breath, inhaling shakily and letting out slowly.

"I'm going on. You two go back, grab the brooms in the room with the keys, fly out and get McGonagall or... or just anyone."

"She didn't believe us before," Hermione points out.

"Take the riddle as proof you've been down here and... tell them who I am. I'm pretty sure they won't leave me down here, student or not. People have been looking for me for years after all."

Neville frowns. "What do you mean?"

Harry smiles and Wishes his scar visible. "I'm Harry Potter."

They go first then he drinks the potion and heads onwards. Beyond the fire is a large chamber and sure enough there's already someone in there, stood before the mirror that Harry found at Christmas. But it's not Voldemort—it's Quirrell.

Quirrell turns, frowning. Harry Wishes himself completely and utterly invisible and silently moves aside. Quirrell's eyes stay on the door, narrowing slightly, clearly looking for whoever opened it. Harry creeps forward, rubbing at his scar, which aches. It's been doing it for weeks, but it's worse now, a steady stab of pain that he's struggling to ignore. He doesn't do anything to attack Quirrell yet, because he's too baffled. It supposed to be Voldemort trying to steal the Stone, not the nervous, stuttering Defence professor with the weird smelling turban. Even Snape would make more sense than Quirrell—Harry can at least imagine him as a servant of Voldemort, but Quirrell? It just doesn't fit.

Quirrell eventually turns back to the mirror, walking around it to look at the back and then coming around to the front again.

"I see the Stone," he murmurs to himself without stutter or hesitation. "I see myself presenting it to my master, but how do I get it..."

Harry peers past Quirrell but all he sees is the man's reflection—normal, not older like Harry saw himself at Christmas, just plain old Quirrell, brow furrowed.

"Perhaps... is the Stone inside the mirror? Do I break it? Or..."

He curses. Harry edges up to the mirror and touches the frame, Wishing the glass to become unbreakable. If the Stone is inside it, hopefully that'll be enough to keep it safe at least for a while. Then he looks at Quirrell. He might not be much, but he's clearly not what he seems, and Harry raises a hand.

Quirrell cries out in shock when ropes appear from thin air and bind themselves around his body and legs, knocking him off balance to topple to the floor. Harry drops his invisibility, watching as Quirrell notices him, his face twisting angrily.

"You!" he snarls, eyes noticing the scar on Harry's forehead.

"Me," Harry confirms, and then leaps back when Quirrell clicks his fingers and the ropes disappear.

"You're supposed to be missing," he says, getting to his feet.

"Depending on who you ask, I am. There's help on the way. You're not getting the Stone."

"Help will come too late to save you."

"Let me speak to him," says a third voice, high and cold, making Harry jump. Quirrell hesitates.

"Master, you are not strong enough."

"I have strength enough for this."

When Quirrell unwraps the turban, Harry can only stare in horror at the face sticking out the back of Quirrell's head.

"Harry Potter... you see what I've become... you see what I must do to survive... live off another, a mere _parasite_ ," Voldemort spits.

"You're still not getting the Stone," Harry says with more confidence than he feels.

" _You_ will."

"I'm not helping you. You killed my parents!"

"Get me the Stone and I will bring them back. I have great power, Harry. Restored, I can return your parents to you. Surely that is worth retrieving the Stone."

"You're a liar," he says, but his voice shakes and Voldemort hears it.

"Get me the Stone, Harry, and I can give you all you've ever wanted."

It's not like Harry doesn't want the Stone either, because he sort of does. With its ability to turn metals to gold he'll never have to steal anything in his life again, but with the elixir of life... maybe, just maybe, the vision of himself as a happy, healthy grown-up could come true.

But he can't let Voldemort get it. It doesn't matter how desperately he wishes he could have his parents back, it's not possible. He knows that. Bringing back the dead is magic that not even he can do. He tried; he found a kitten on the street once and took it in, but it died and when he Wished it alive, it became only a ratty, slightly scary zombie-cat and he cried as he made himself kill it again.

"No. I'm not getting it."

"KILL HIM!"

Quirrell doesn't even bother with magic. He just lunges at Harry, knocking him to the floor, pinning him down and wrapping his hands around Harry's neck. Pain explodes across Harry's head, so intense that he can't even think to fight back against Quirrell—but he doesn't have to. Quirrell howls with pain and snatches his hands back.

"What magic is this?!" he cries, staring at his red, raw, blistering hands.

"Fool! Kill him!"

Quirrell raises his hand to cast a curse and Harry, head still stabbing, reaches up with his own hands and grabs Quirrell's face. Quirrell screams and jerks away and Harry follows, his pain-addled mind thinking only that he needed to keep his hands on Quirrell, keep him screaming and in pain so that he can't kill Harry. He grabs Quirrell's arm and Quirrell thrashes, trying to throw him off, free hand grabbing at Harry's fingers only to snatch back. Stop! Harry thinks, and like the troll on Hallowe'en, Quirrell goes still, and Harry lets go of him, staggering back. He catches a glimpse of someone at the door and then the world spins and goes black.


	8. Chapter 8

Harry wakes up in a private room in the Hospital Wing. His wrists are bound in restraints, tying him to the bed and they don't fall off when he Wishes them too. In fact, nothing he Wishes works—he can't conjure, transfigure, or even levitate anything—and by the time the door opens and Madam Pomfrey walks in, he's in a full blown panic attack, hyperventilating and tugging furiously at the restraints.

Pomfrey rushes to his side, drawing her wand and tapping it to the restraints. They open, he snatches his hands away, and a swarm of butterflies pop into existence. Pomfrey jumps. Harry scrambles off the bed and flicks his hand. The butterflies turn to bees then to flower petals that drift down to settle over everything. The walls paint themselves every colour of the rainbow, the multitude of sweets on a table by the far wall lift into the air to hover for a few seconds, and the water on the bedside cabinet pours out of the glass, defying every law of gravity to whirl through the air, twisting itself into the shape of a fox that trots in a circle several times before slinking back to the glass and sliding back inside as though simply poured from a jug.

When it's over and the room's back to normal, Pomfrey's standing with her mouth hanging open and Harry's backed into the corner, still breathing hard but not hyperventilating.

The door opens and Dumbledore steps inside. His eyes settle on Harry and he smiles warmly, but Harry doesn't find it at all welcoming. Pomfrey forces herself to close her mouth and act like a professional again.

"Mr Evans, I'm glad to see you're awake," Dumbledore says.

"What did you do to me?" Harry asks in a shaky voice. "Why couldn't I do magic on the bed?"

"The restraints are inscribed with magic suppression runes. We didn't want you waking up and disappearing while no one was here."

Harry flicks his gaze between Dumbledore and Pomfrey and tries to force his breathing to calm down. "What do you want with me?" he asks, and is glad to hear his voice is steadier now.

"Why don't you sit down?" Dumbledore suggests, gesturing to the bed. "We can have a nice chat. The restraints can stay off," he adds, noticing Harry's eyes going to them. "It was a precaution only and I'm sorry to have distressed you so much."

Harry hesitantly sits on the bed, Dumbledore conjures a chair to sit in, and Pomfrey leaves them be.

"You know who I am."

Dumbledore nods. "I've had quite an interesting conversation with Miss Granger and Mr Longbottom."

"Are they okay?"

"Perfectly fine."

"And the Stone? Quirrell didn't get it?"

"The Stone has been returned to Nicolas Flamel and will be destroyed."

Harry's gut lurches. "Destroyed? But..."

"Nicolas has enough elixir left to set his affairs in order," Dumbledore says, incorrectly predicting Harry's worry, "but then he will die, yes. We decided it was best, and to the well-organised mind, death is but the next great adventure."

Harry doesn't correct him on why he's bothered that the Stone's being destroyed. He wonders if, when his ten years are up, his mind will be well-organised enough to accept his death so calmly.

"What happens to me now?"

"My dear boy, don't sound so scared. I have been looking for you ever since you left your aunt and uncle's house; I cannot tell you have glad I am to have found you. And I must thank you. If you hadn't stopped Quirrell, Lord Voldemort may very well have retrieved the Stone tonight. The great risk you put yourself in is more than any person should."

"Someone had to do something. You were gone and McGonagall wouldn't listen. What happened to Quirrell? Has he been arrested? What about Voldemort? He was in Quirrell's _head_."

"Voldemort left Quirrell to die. He has fled once more."

"As what? The books all say he died the night he tried to kill me, but obviously he didn't. What happened to him?"

"No one knows how Voldemort survived that night. Certainly his body was destroyed but his spirit continues to live on. What you saw was what becomes of him when he possesses another person. With the Stone he would have been able to return to his true self and his full power."

"Then it's safe now, if the Stone's destroyed."

"I'm afraid there are other ways for him to return," Dumbledore says quietly. "We have not seen the last of Lord Voldemort."

"Were you the one that I saw right before I passed out?"

Dumbledore nods. "I feared I was too late. I was halfway to the Ministry when I realised that where I really needed to be was here."

"Did you see what happened to Quirrell when I touched him? It hurt him, _really_ hurt him, and that wasn't me doing that with magic."

"Your mother died to save you, Harry. That kind of love leaves a mark—not a scar, no visible sign... but to have been loved so strongly by someone, it leaves a protection even after the person is gone, something in your very skin. Voldemort, who doesn't understand love, could not bare to touch someone who'd been affected by something so pure."

"Why did he try to kill me when I was a baby?" Harry asks quietly. "Why did he come after my parents?"

Dumbledore lets out a sigh and Harry knows what he's going to say before he says it. "Alas, that is a question I cannot answer. One day, I will tell you, but for now put it from your mind. When you're older..."

"Older when?" he pushes. He wants to know before his ten years are up.

Instead of answering, Dumbledore fixes him with a firm look. "I think it's time you answered some of my questions."

Harry glances towards the door. Dumbledore notices. "I'm here to help you, Harry. You needn't be afraid of me."

"Are you going to throw me out?"

Once again, Dumbledore doesn't answer. "How long have you been at my school?"

"A year, near enough. I came up on the train last September."

"And where were you before that?"

"London."

"London is a big place."

"You're telling me. I still got lost after three years."

"You've been in London since leaving your aunt and uncle's house? Living where exactly?"

"Anywhere I could find space."

"On the streets? Alone?"

Harry shrugs defensively. "Yeah, so?"

"Why did you leave Little Whinging? You were safe there."

"I wasn't _safe_ ," Harry replies incredulously, and Dumbledore's gaze flicks to Harry's left eye.

"I realise the burglary must have scared you, however—"

"It wasn't a burglar," Harry interrupts. "My _uncle_ did this to me."

Dumbledore blinks. "Your uncle?"

"He nearly killed me and then he stabbed himself just so everyone would think it was a burglar."

"Why would he do that?"

Harry's face turns angry. "I knew no one would believe me. That's why I never told."

"I didn't say I don't believe you," Dumbledore says calmly. "I merely asked why he would do such a thing."

"I don't know," Harry snaps. "He never told me why he liked beating me up, did he? He just did it. And when it went too far he didn't want to get arrested so he makes up that story. He's crazy, that's probably why."

"Putting you in hospital wasn't the first time he hurt you?"

"He's always hurt me. Little Harry Potter, the freak who lived. "

"You are not a freak," Dumbledore says quietly, but there's anger burning in his eyes.

Harry scoffs. "Yeah, right. He always called me that—him and my aunt—and now I've got magic no one else does, and a messed up eye, and this stupid scar on my forehead. They realised I was a freak before anyone else did."

"You are not a freak," Dumbledore repeats.

Harry just scowls.

"I would like to ask you some questions about your magic. Miss Granger said you called it 'Wish Magic'?"

Harry nods.

"Could you show me?"

The glass of water lifts off the cabinet by the bed and floats over to Harry, who lifts his hand and takes it, drinking some then sending it floating back.

"How long have you been able to do this?"

"Forever," Harry lies.

"I understand you're also capable of turning invisible..." he trails off as Harry vanishes. "Harry, if you'll permit me, I'd like to cast a few spells just to test the extent of your invisibility."

"You can't see me, what more is there to test?"

"I would like to see if you're merely invisible to the naked eye or to magical means of detection as well. It won't hurt."

"Alright."

He sits for fifteen minutes as Dumbledore casts spell after spell. He calls in Madam Pomfrey to confirm whether Harry succeeds at making himself invisible to only one person (he does) and also attempts a number of spells to try and make Harry visible, none of which work.

"Have you been hidden like this ever since you ran away from your aunt and uncle's?" Dumbledore asks when he's finally finished with his spells.

"Pretty much. Why?"

"It explains why we were never able to find you. You are completely undetectable by magical means. So far as spells are concerned, you do not even exist."

"So what happens now?" Harry asks him, fully visible again. "You throw me out?"

"You will have to leave the school for the summer, yes, but you will of course come back in September as a proper student."

Dumbledore expects surprise and gratitude from Harry; instead he gets suspicion.

"I broke into your school, have been living here in secret, snuck past all those protections and aided in getting a teacher killed, and you're giving me a place at the school?"

"Your name has been down for Hogwarts since you were born. Your parents both attended and you should have started this past September. We were unable to find you to send a letter, but you can begin this next school year."

"Begin... so as a first year?"

Dumbledore nods. "I realise that for your age you should be a second year, but you will have to begin with the first years, despite your impressive power. Wand based magic is not the same as your Wish Magic."

Harry scowls but nods and doesn't argue. He doesn't want to risk Dumbledore changing his mind and deciding he won't let Harry join at all.

"Sir, I will be joining as Harry Evans, won't I? Because I'm not going back to being Harry Potter."

Dumbledore looks at him for a moment, his blue eyes considering behind his half-moon glasses. "People will realise who you are by your scar."

Harry Wishes his scar hidden and asks innocently, "What scar?"

Dumbledore doesn't look impressed, but there's a twinkle in his eye. "Very well. Only some of the staff shall know who you really are unless you choose to divulge the information yourself."

"Why only some of the staff? Not that I want them all to know," he adds quickly, then asks, "Who knows about me already?"

"It's not necessary for them all to know. For now, only myself, Madam Pomfrey, and Professors McGonagall and Snape know. I will also inform Professors Sprout and Flitwick."

Dumbledore asks about the Assistant, who Hermione and Neville mentioned to him, but Harry can't tell him much more than they did. After that Dumbledore says he can stay at the school for the rest of the term while Dumbledore arranges a place for him to live during the holidays. Harry doesn't mention the Room of Requirement and Dumbledore says he can sleep in the room they're in for the last few weeks instead of using classrooms.

"Sir, I just have one last question."

"Fire away, my boy."

Harry points at the table of sweets. "What's all that for?"

"Ah! Tokens and gifts from your admirers."

"Admir- what?"

"You see, what happened down in the dungeons between you and Professor Quirrell is a complete secret. So, naturally, the whole school knows."

"Wha- but—about me? You said no one would know!"

"They know only that Harry Potter defeated Professor Quirrell and has since been in the infirmary. They don't know what you look like and Madam Pomfrey has done an excellent job of keeping out those who tried to sneak in. When you begin as a student, not one of them will be any the wiser that you're the same person who so bravely faced Lord Voldemort."

* * *

Harry gets a visit from Neville and Hermione later that day. He's startled when Hermione flings her arms around his neck in a hug, but he awkwardly pats her on the back.

"There are all sorts of rumours about what happened with Professor Quirrell," she tells him. "And they all know about you of course—not that you've been hiding here or your Wish Magic or anything, but they all just know you were involved."

"We didn't tell them," Neville adds. "They just sort of... knew. Or guessed, maybe. I don't know. What _did_ happen anyway?"

He tells them. When he mentions that he'll be joining as a proper student in September, Hermione beams at him and Neville gives him a congratulatory clap on the shoulder.

"Shame you won't be in our year; we could have shared a dorm."

"If I get in Gryffindor."

"You think you won't, after what you just did? I'm pretty sure taking on You Know Who is the definition of bravery."

"Maybe," Harry concedes, "but I'm a history nerd and spend most of my time studying so I could easily end up in Ravenclaw."

"Well wherever you end up, we'll still be friends," Neville says, but doesn't sound confident. Harry grins, and the other boy relaxes and grins back.

The day term ends, Dumbledore brings Harry a pair of leather wrist cuffs when he comes to pick him up to go to wherever Harry will be living now. Harry's confused until Dumbledore asks him to put them on and try to do magic only to find that he can't. When he tries to take them off, they refuse to come undone and Harry fixes Dumbledore with an angry glare.

"Get them off."

Dumbledore doesn't. "They will suppress your magic to that of a normal witch or wizard."

"I don't care, take them off!"

"Harry, I'm sorry, but you're too powerful for someone so young. I cannot allow you to wander about with so much power at your fingertips. When you're older and better trained, I will gladly remove them."

"No, you take them off now!" Harry screams, shoving him. "Take them off, take them off, _take them off!_ "

Dumbledore flicks his wand and Harry slides back and drops into the chair by the bed, his bottom sticking to it so he can't stand. "If you want to be a student here, you will learn to be more respectful to your teachers."

"You've taken my magic!" Harry spits.

"I have suppressed it. You will still be able to cast spells perfectly well with a wand when you get one."

"What about my scar? I'm supposed to be hiding. I'm not being Harry Potter; I'd rather go back to the streets than that."

Dumbledore looks sad. "Surely you don't mean that."

"I do," Harry says furiously. "Harry Potter's _dead_. I'm not him and I'm not having everyone gawking at me like Hermione and Neville did at first."

"When you have a wand, you can learn a Concealing Charm that will hide your scar. You will need someone to escort you to Diagon Alley to buy your school supplies; they can teach you it then."

"Students aren't allowed to do magic outside of school," he points out grumpily, "and I don't have any money to buy my school supplies."

"You're not yet a student; that rule won't apply. As for money, you needn't worry. Your parents left you a substantial fortune when they died. I have the key to their vault; whoever comes to take you shopping will bring it then."

He wants to argue, but he doesn't see that he has much choice.

He and Dumbledore take a portkey to a street in Thetford, in Norfolk. It reminds Harry uncomfortably of Privet Drive—neat rows of houses with very little to individualise them, and flashy but practical cars that occasionally gleam when the grey clouds move and let a stream of sunlight shine through.

Harry follows Dumbledore up the front path to the house with a big '12' on the front door and asks, when Dumbledore knocks, who it is that lives here.

"I really should know something about the people I'm staying with."

Dumbledore doesn't answer. A figure approaches the door, blurred through the frosted glass set into it, but as the handle turns and the door starts to open, Harry gets a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach and when the door opens fully, he thinks he might throw up.

Petunia's expression is torn between fear, hatred, and simple disgust.

"Get inside," she snaps. "I'll not have you hanging around on my doorstep where the neighbours will see you."

Dumbledore beams and steps over the threshold. Harry doesn't move.

"You're not leaving me here."

"Harry—"

"After what I told you, you're bringing me back to _them?_ "

"Come inside."

Harry shakes his head and backs up. "No. I'm not living with them."

He turns to run and an invisible hand grabs the back of his shirt and drags him inside. Petunia looks horrified and glances fearfully up and down the street before slamming the door shut.

"You can't leave me here!" Harry shouts at Dumbledore. "He nearly killed me!"

"Shall we move through to the sitting room?" Dumbledore suggests, turning and walking through the nearest door before either Harry or Petunia can say anything. Harry reaches for the door handle but it's locked, although Petunia hasn't locked it and there's no key in sight. A furious scowl on his face, he slouches after Petunia, who's followed Dumbledore into the sitting room.

Apparently Dumbledore has been by before to talk to Petunia and Vernon. He made it very clear that if either of them laid a hand on Harry then they would have to answer to Dumbledore. Harry doesn't put much stock in his words. Vernon never responded to the threats of his mysterious gift giver all those years ago, just figured out how to work around it. No doubt the same would happen now.

Dumbledore tells him he has to stay with the Dursleys, or at least with Petunia, because there are protections on the house that Dumbledore can't put anywhere else, protections that prevent Voldemort or his followers from getting to Harry. He actually has the nerve to smile as he mentions the spells put up at a two mile radius around the house that will prevent Harry from running away while still allowing him to get out for fresh air and exercise. The entire time he's talking, Harry sits with a scowl on his face, arms folded, glaring at Dumbledore and wishing furiously that he could take off the cuffs and turn the man into a rat.

When Dumbledore's gone, Petunia shows Harry to the smallest bedroom in the house—even smaller than the one Harry had at Privet Drive—and tells him that Dudley still has another week at Smeltings, his boarding school, and Vernon's at work. She's clearly no happier than Harry is about their living situation. She tells him dinner will be at six, that if he's not at the table when it's served he won't get any, and when he snidely asks, "You mean I actually get some?" she scowls and mutters something about Dumbledore, then snappishly tells him that other than mealtimes, she doesn't want to see him. She won't even give him chores to do, she's that eager for him to be out of her sight.

Vernon glances at him with mingled fear and hatred when he gets back from work, but says nothing, apparently deciding to pretend Harry doesn't exist. Harry's perfectly happy with this arrangement. The less he and his uncle interact, the better.

He tries cutting the cuffs off, both with scissors and a knife, but they appear to have been charmed against it because he doesn't even damage the material.

The week until Dudley returns is quiet. Vernon's at work most of the time and Petunia only ever scowls whenever Harry makes an appearance, which is only to eat. He wakes up when his aunt and uncle do, lying in bed and listening to Vernon get ready for work. When he's left, Harry gets up, washes and dresses then goes down for breakfast. Although he eats dinner with them, he has breakfast alone, and then if it's not raining he leaves the house and wanders the neighbourhood for most of the day. He tests the boundaries, but Dumbledore's spells hold. He's physically incapable of stepping further than two miles away from the house.


	9. Chapter 9

"BUT I DON'T WANT HIM HERE!"

It pains Harry that the first words he hears from his cousin are ones he whole-heartedly agrees with.

"It's _his_ fault we had to move to this stupid place. Why is he here? Send him away again!"

Harry hasn't asked why the Dursleys moved from Little Whinging. He's curious, but not enough to speak to his aunt or uncle. He's not really surprised to hear Dudley laying the blame on him though.

Petunia promises Dudley a new computer to appease him about Harry's existence. It stops Dudley from shouting; it doesn't stop him from barging into Harry's room to tell him how much Dudley hates him and wishes he'd run away again, and if he shows his face when Dudley's friends come around then Dudley will beat him up.

Harry's not afraid of Dudley. He stands half a head taller than Harry and twice as wide, but it's hard to be afraid of someone whose butt is so big it sags over the side of the kitchen chairs.

Instead of saying anything, Harry stares at Dudley. Petunia told him that he isn't to mention Dumbledore, Hogwarts, or magic to Dudley, who's been told that Harry was found living on the streets and come September will be attending a school for the criminally insane. Harry doesn't like being portrayed as some crazy person who needs to be locked up, but that doesn't mean he isn't above using it to his own advantage.

For almost a minute he just stares at Dudley, unblinking, expression blank. His dull left eye only makes the effect better, and when Dudley starts to fidget uncomfortably, Harry lurches forward, yelling nonsense. Dudley shrieks and almost trips over his own feet as he staggers back out the room. Harry sniggers, lying back down, and doesn't even care when Petunia comes up and tells him if he does anything like that again, he won't get fed.

The days pass slowly. He spends them outside for the most part, at the local park or simply wandering the streets. It's boring, but better than being in the house, and he's spends hours imagining the various ways he's going to get revenge on Dumbledore when he finally gets his cuffs off. He sleeps a lot too.

Vernon refrains from hitting Harry, but Dudley has no qualms about it. He and his friend Louis—who goes to the local secondary school but that's alright because he's _cool_... or so Dudley says—seek out Harry when they're bored and shove him around or beat him up. Petunia tells Dudley to leave Harry alone, but Dudley takes that to mean that he simply needs to make sure there are no bruises where they're easily seen, so they just leave his face alone.

"You should be grateful," Louis says after one particularly bad beating. "We're knocking the crazy out of you so you can be normal."

Harry rather thinks they're only making him crazier.

He's not sure if it's Louis and Dudley's beating or the simple stress of his living situation, but he's pretty sure he's having more seizures than usual. He also realises that he probably should have mentioned them to Madam Pomfrey before he left Hogwarts. He hadn't had any during his stay at the Hospital Wing, or at least he wasn't aware of having any, and out of habit kept it secret along with everything else about himself. But if he's going to be a real student, he realises it's the kind of thing he should probably make the teachers aware of.

It takes Vernon twenty-four days and an owl swooping through the open kitchen window on a Sunday morning before he loses his control. Petunia shrieks, Dudley lets out a high-pitched scream, and Vernon swears violently. The owl settles on top of the fridge-freezer and hoots once, turning baleful eyes on Harry, who hops out his chair and goes over.

"I can't reach you up there."

The owl jumps off, spreading its wings to glide down to the table instead. Dudley falls out of his chair in his urgency to get away, knocking his orange juice over as he goes, and Vernon scrambles to his feet. Petunia stands by the sink, face turning angry now she's over the shock. Harry ignores them all and unties the envelope from the bird's leg. As soon as he does, the bird turns and snatches up the strips of bacon left on Dudley's plate.

It's his Hogwarts letter, as expected, with an accompanying note saying Professor McGonagall will be coming to take him to Diagon Alley a week later.

None of the Dursleys move until Harry's dug a pen from the bits and pieces drawer, scribbled a reply and sent the owl off again. As soon as it's vanished out the window, Vernon pulls it shut so hard the glass rattles, then grabs Harry by the shoulders and shakes him hard enough to make his head spin.

"I'll not have your freakishness in my house!" he spits.

"Get off me!" Harry yells back. "Dumbledore'll turn you into a slug!"

He might hate Dumbledore with a burning passion, but that doesn't mean he's above using the man for his own ends.

It's the wrong thing to say, Vernon backhands him across the face, knocking him back to hit the edge of the table.

"Vernon!" Petunia cries.

Harry lifts his gaze to Vernon's face, forcing his fear back behind anger. "Dumbledore'll turn you into a slug and then I'll pour salt on you."

"OUT!"

He leaves the house and doesn't come back until after dark. He misses dinner and the house is locked when he gets there. When Petunia answers the door at his knock, she looks at him as though he's a walking piece of dirt and snaps, "Upstairs."

* * *

He wakes early on the thirty-first, the day McGonagall will be taking him to Diagon Alley, unsure of what woke him until he realises there's a persistent tapping at the window. He gets up and pushes the curtains aside to see an owl outside with a parcel. He quickly opens the window to let it in and untie the package. The owl leaves as soon as it's relieved of its burden and Harry picks up the letter taped to the parcel.

_Dear Harry,_

_Happy birthday! Dumbledore gave me your address so I could write and I think he gave it to Hermione too. How are you? How are the people you're living with? Are they nice? Dumbledore says they're Muggles but know about magic, so I hope the owl doesn't scare them. What's it like living with Muggles anyway?_

_Hope you're well, write back soon_

_From,_

_Neville_

Inside the parcel is an Ultimate Honeydukes Selection Box which has enough sweets and chocolate to last him three months. He grins, picking out an Ice Mice and munching on it. It's a great start to what he hopes will be a great day.

Vernon seems to finds his cheerfulness offensive that morning, grumbling as he leaves for work, but Harry doesn't care. He doesn't even care when Dudley steals his last sausage. He's got a friend who sends him letters and a birthday present, and today he'll go shopping for his school things and he can finally get a wand and learn how to do a Concealing Charm for his scar.

The doorbell rings at precisely nine o'clock. Harry almost skips to answer it, eager and ready to leave, backpack already with him. He doesn't leave Kiwi or his figures—still shrunk down from Hogwarts as he never got a chance to enlarge them before Dumbledore put the cuffs on—unattended in the house with Dudley, not after the first time he tried to flush Kiwi down the toilet, and Harry's definitely not leaving chocolate anywhere his fat cousin can find it. But it's not McGonagall on the doorstep—it's Snape.

"You're not McGonagall," Harry blurts.

Snape raises an eyebrow. "Your observational skills are remarkable. Your manners are less so. It's rude to leave someone standing on the doorstep."

"Where's McGonagall? Aren't we leaving right now?" he asks nervously. He'd rather not have Snape meet his aunt and cousin.

"Professor McGonagall has fallen ill. I will be taking you instead and I would like to get this over and done with as quickly as possible, so if you've quite finished asking pointless questions—"

"'Scuse me," says a voice behind Snape. "Need someone ter sign fer this."

Snape steps aside to let the postman hand Harry a package with a couple of letters on top. Harry puts them on the sideboard while he scribbles a signature on the postman's clipboard.

"Come in," Harry mutters to Snape, picking up the parcel again "I'm just gonna take these to my aunt."

Snape grabs his shoulder, unbalancing him, and the letters slide to the floor.

"Your aunt?"

"Yeah, Aunt Pet- this is for me!"

His name and address is written in Hermione's neat script on the top of the parcel, which is about the size and shape of a book. He grins, puts it aside, and picks up the dropped letters. "Back in a sec, sir."

He goes to the kitchen, tosses the letters on the table, but before he can say he's leaving, Petunia gasps. Her eyes are fixed on the door and Harry turns. Snape stands there, his dark eyes full of such hatred that Harry's surprised the kitchen itself doesn't shrink back from him.

"You," Petunia half-gasps. "What are _you_ doing here?"

"You know him?" Harry asks.

"Are you one of the workers at his school for crazy people?"

Snape looks at Dudley, who shrinks back. "Excuse me?"

"Go!" Petunia snaps. "Take the boy and get out."

Harry eager to leave too. He can tell by Snape's expression that there's going to be awkward questions later. The sooner they get out the house, the less Snape can find to ask him about.

Instead of leaving, Snape draws his wand. Petunia stiffens.

"You can't—"

"I can't what?" Snape interrupts coldly, a dangerous look on his face.

"He doesn't know," Petunia hisses with a nod towards Dudley.

"Then send him out. Our portkey leaves in three minutes and I will not be impressed if I have to come back again for the boy."

When Petunia's forced out a complaining Dudley, Snape turns to Harry and grabs his chin in hand. Harry cringes and jerks his head away. Snape's eyes flash.

"I was told you wanted the scar concealed."

"Oh," Harry says, pretending his cheeks aren't going red. "Yeah."

He brushes hair back from his forehead and tilts his head back. Snape touches the tip of his wand to the scar, tracing it along the lightning bolt as he murmurs a spell. When it's done, he pockets the wand and draws out a feather then checks his watch. "We have ninety—"

"My parcel!"

"You can get it later," Snape snaps, but Harry's already running from the kitchen, pushing past a half-furious, half-scared looking Petunia and stumbling into the hall just in time to see Dudley grab the parcel from the sideboard.

"That's mine!"

Dudley grabs it in and makes for the stairs. Harry sprints forwards, knocking into him. Dudley staggers and Harry grabs the parcel, trying to pull it from him.

"Get off! MUM! Harry's bullying me!"

"That's mine!" Harry yells at him. "Give it back!"

Dudley abruptly lets go of the parcel and staggers back like someone's hit him despite no one touching him. Harry clutches the parcel to his chest, glaring at the other boy, who's looking confused. Snape stands over Harry and Petunia rushes over to Dudley.

"Don't you use that—that—on my son!" she says furiously to Snape, but her eyes are on Harry. "You, give him the parcel."

"The parcel is his," Snape says before Harry can speak, and Harry turns it so the name on the front is visible. Petunia looks furious. Snape holds out the feather to Harry, who grabs it. Petunia barely has time to steps in front of Dudley before the two wizards vanish.

They reappear in the Leaky Cauldron. Snape pockets the feather then draws his wand and taps it to Harry's parcel, murmuring a Shrinking Spell.

"Thanks."

He shrugs off his backpack, putting it on an empty table to unzip it. He has to pull out the Honeydukes box, putting the parcel underneath.

"Why have you brought the entirety of your personal possessions?" Snape asks him.

"Not safe leaving them there. Dudley—" he breaks off. It's none of Snape's business. He starts trying to force the Honeydukes box back in but it becomes clear they won't fit now, even with the parcel shrunk down. Snape rolls his eyes and shrinks that too. Harry mutters another thanks, sticks it in and zips the bag up, shrugging it back on.

"Would you care to explain why your oaf of a cousin thought I worked at a school for 'crazy people'?"

Harry hunches his shoulders as they head down Diagon Alley towards Gringotts. He hoped Snape might have forgotten that.

"They didn't tell him about magic and said I was going to a school for the criminally insane," he mutters.

"And of course any attempt on your part to convince him of the truth would only have verified what his parents said."

Harry nods, wishing he'd been smart enough to realise that before he claimed he was a wizard. Dudley and Louis thought it was hilarious. Vernon turned so red with anger Harry thought he'd burst into flames. He was surprised the man refrained from hitting him then.

Gringotts is the first place they visit and Harry whoops when the cart first sets off, but Snape shoots him such a disapproving look that he shuts up. When he sees the contents of the Potter vault, he staggers, mouth gaping. He's never seen so much money in one place.

"This is all mine?" he asks weakly.

Snape looks as disgusted as Harry is awed.

Once they've withdrawn his money, Harry wants to get his wand first. Snape has other ideas.

"I want to get this over and done with as quickly and as efficiently as possible. We go only to the stores necessary, buy only what you need, and we are not backtracking to anywhere, so I strongly advise you make sure you've got what you need in each store before leaving. Is that clear?"

Harry nods. Snape raises an eyebrow and Harry resists the urge to roll his eyes.

"Yes, sir," he says.

"Good. Then we will start with your robes."

When Harry starts browsing the other robes available in Madam Malkins, Snape pointedly reminds him that he's only to buy what he needs.

"I _do_ need robes," Harry replies. "I've got hardly any clothes and no robes at all. I can't wear my school uniform all the time."

A muscle twitches in Snape's jaw, but he sits in a chair by the door and folds his arms over his chest, resigning himself to a longer wait.

After Madam Malkins they get his stationary supplies and then a trunk (Charmed Against Fire, Thieves, and Spell Damage! Includes Thirty Year Wear-and-Tear Guarantee or Your Money Back! (Terms and Conditions Apply)) and then they're at Ollivander's and Harry's practically bouncing with excitement.

There's someone else in there being served, a young girl with her parents and a little brother who watches jealously as the girl tries out wand after wand. Snape and Harry wait to one side and when the family have left, Harry approaches the counter with a grin. Ollivander returns the smile then nods a greeting to Snape.

"We'll start with ebony, like your father's. Ten inches, unicorn hair core."

Harry takes the wand, frowning. "How do you know who my father is?"

Ollivander's eyes flick to Snape. Harry turns, looks at him, then spins back. "He's not my dad!"

Ollivander looks back at him. "I do apologise. Nevertheless, give it a wave."

Harry does. Nothing happens and Ollivander snatches it away and gives him another. "Yew, twelve inches, dragon heartstring."

That one does nothing either. He tries the next, and the next, and it feels like he's been through nearly the entire shop and is beginning to wonder if his Wish Magic means he can't use wand magic when Ollivander hands him a holly wand with a phoenix feather core.

He knows it's the one for him instantly. A warm tingle spreads through his fingers and when he swishes it through the air, a stream of multicoloured sparks fly from the end.

"Excellent," Ollivander murmurs. "If I may, what's your name, young man?"

"Harry Evans," he tells him, grinning and twirling the wand between his fingers. "Can I get a holster?"

"Of course," Ollivander replies, thoughtful eyes fixed on Snape. "That'll be seven galleons and sixteen sickles."

Harry avoids looking at Snape when they leave the store. When Ollivander assumed Snape was his father, Harry was only shocked and mostly interested in getting a wand, but now he feels awkward. Snape is going to be his _teacher_ ; being mistaken for his son is embarrassing. And what does Snape think of it? Probably disgust. Harry thinks he's the kind of man who's horrified by the idea of having kids of his own, despite being a teacher. It's not like he seems to like _any_ of the students. It makes Harry wonder why he became a teacher in the first place, but he's not about to ask.

They go to Flourish and Blotts next, and Harry forgets Ollivander's words as he disregards Snape's only-what-you-need command and buys not only his set textbooks, but _Hogwarts: A History_ and half a dozen other interesting looking books.

In the Apothecary, Snape goes into the back of the store where the restricted items are while the shop clerk makes up a supply kit with the basic ingredients a new student will need. Harry's about to pay when Snape comes back and stops him, checking through the kit. He declares it in need of several more ingredients the clerk didn't include, deems a few of them unfit for use and insults the clerk while asking him to fetch better ones, and only when he's satisfied does he allow Harry to pay. He gets similarly pedantic when they go to the cauldron shop, inspecting the pewter ones and, when Harry asks why they don't just take the nearest, pointing out that a damaged cauldron can affect the potions made in it.

"Aren't you hot in those robes?" Harry asks when they finally leave the cauldron shop. He's long since taken off his jumper and tied it round his waist, leaving him in just a t-shirt and wishing he had shorts to wear instead of jeans. Snape, as always, is in sweeping black robes.

"Cooling Charms," the Potion Master replies simply.

Harry's surprised when Snape suggests they go into Quality Quidditch supplies when Harry stops to peer through the window at the Nimbus 2001 on display.

"No point," Harry says, trying not to sound bitter. "First years aren't allowed brooms and I can't play Quidditch anyway."

"What makes you say that?"

"Can't catch a ball that's flying upwards of fifty miles an hour when you're half-blind. Can we go in there?"

Snape looks around at the toy store then raises an eyebrow at him. "You're twelve years old."

"It's my birthday," Harry replies defensively. "I want to get myself something."

He gets _Famous Figurines: Quidditch Players Edition_. It's on one of the higher shelves and he has to get on tiptoes to reach it. As he is, his shirt sleeve falls back, revealing the fingerprint bruises on his upper arm that Louis left the last time he held Harry still so Dudley could beat him up. He doesn't notice until Snape grabs his arm and pushes his sleeve up further.

"Where did those come from?"

Harry glances at them then at Snape. "My cousin. Just messing around."

He doesn't need to admit to Snape that he's his cousin's punching bag. It's bad enough Snape saw their fight earlier and knows Harry keeps everything he owns in his backpack because of Dudley.

"Just messing around should not leave you battered and bruised."

Harry jerks his arm away. "It's nothing," he mutters, taking the _Figurines_ box and approaching the counter.

Their last stop is Eyelops Owl Emporium, where he buys a beautiful snowy white owl. It's a little after one by then and all his packages have been put in his trunk, some shrunk down to fit, and the trunk shrunk down to fit in his pocket.

"Are you going to teach me the Concealing Charm now? Dumbledore said I could learn it."

"We'll take lunch at the Leaky Cauldron first," Snape tells him.

Snape pays for their lunches. Harry points out that he doesn't need Snape to, but the man gives him a withering glare and he hurriedly changes his words to a thank you instead.

When they've finished eating, Snape tells him that he can't learn the Concealing Charm here so they'll be going to Snape's house to do it. Harry, who hoped that the incident in the toy shop would be the last awkward moment he'd have to endure that day, decides this is definitely by far the worst. Going to a teacher's _house_? It just isn't done. Even he knows that.

But he needs to learn the Concealing Charm, so he pushes the awkwardness aside, grips the portkey, makes sure he's got a tight grip on his owl's cage, and feels a wrench in his gut as the portkey activates.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone who's interested, I've made a tumblr for this fic which will have bits of extra info. It can be found at forthepriceofasoul.tumblr.com. There's not much at the moment but I will add to it as the story goes on. Also, you can use it to gush your praises for my writing (kidding) or ask any question you might have. I'm better at answering questions on tumblr than I am at responding to reviews.


	10. Chapter 10

Snape's house is small and dark. They portkey directly into a small sitting room that's dark and full of books. Even the windows and doors, save for the one leading outside, are hidden behind bookshelves. The only space left free is the small fireplace, which isn't even big enough to floo in, though it is big enough for a floo call apparently, as the moment they appear Snape leads Harry into a tiny kitchen and says, "I need to make a floo call. Sit down. Don't touch anything. Where's the parcel you received this morning?"

Harry digs out the parcel and holds it out. Snape enlarges it back to its proper size then disappears back into the sitting room and shuts the door behind him. Harry sits at the two-person table and unwraps the package. Inside is a book on the sixteenth century European vampire uprising and a letter three times as long as the one Neville sent, talking about Hermione's holiday and how busy she is with school work despite not even being at school, and mentioning that she sent the parcel by Muggle post because she wasn't sure if his guardians were accepting of owl post even if they do know about it. He smiles as he reads, feeling a bubble of joy in his chest. After a month of the Dursleys, this reminder that he has friends means the world to him.

Snape's gone for nearly twenty minutes but Harry barely notices, reading his book. The vampire uprising is a controversial issue, particularly how it began. Wizards are unsure and none of the vampires who were involved are willing to talk, so there are theories abound on how it all started.

When Snape's done, he opens the door and curtly calls, "In here."

Harry puts his book aside and eagerly goes back to the sitting room, drawing his wand from the holster on his arm then looking expectantly at Snape.

"The Concealing Charm is a second year spell. I've been told you've studied first year magical theory and if you've done so sufficiently I expect you to have no trouble with it. The motions involved are relatively simple and dependant on the area of skin being concealed. For example, your scar would require only a zigzag motion. Were you casting it over the entire face, as is the norm, a circular motion would be required."

"Why would you do it on the entire face? You'd look weird wandering around with your face all concealed."

"You are thinking of a Concealment Spell."

"There's a difference?"

Snape gives him a look that clearly says he's an idiot. "A Concealment Spell is for obscuring objects. A Concealing Charm is a cosmetic spell."

"Cos- wait, so I'm basically wearing _make-up_?"

Snape raises an eyebrow and Harry pushes back his complaints about being a boy who wears make-up. "What's the incantation?"

It takes just under an hour for him to master it, which annoys him. He's used to being able to do any magic instantly; it feels slow to have to practice and perfect everything, but he realises he'll have to get used to it. Until he can get the cuffs off, everything's going to be slowly learnt.

"I suppose I have to go back now. Are we taking another portkey?"

"Mr Evans, sit down."

Harry gives him a curious look but does as ordered and settles on a threadbare sofa while Snape sits himself in the old armchair. "I spoke to the headmaster earlier. He has agreed that, if you wish to, you may remain with me for the rest of the holidays."

He has to stop himself from blurting out an instant yes. He _does_ want to get away from the Dursleys even if it means living with a teacher for a month—it's not like anyone will know anyway; he's not telling and he doubts Snape will—but on the tail of his joy and gratitude is suspicion. Why would Snape offer to take him in? Why would Dumbledore agree to it? He went to all the effort of tricking Harry into going back to the Dursleys and putting up spells to keep him there, now he's just going to let Harry leave them?

"I'm very grateful for the offer, but why would you do that?"

"I have concerns about your health that will be more easily investigated away from your... family."

"I told you those bruises—"

"Do not lie to me again. I am not an idiot and lying will only embarrass you."

Harry scowls and doesn't look at him.

"However, those were not my only concern. Since picking you up," he continues when Harry looks up questioningly, "you have, for lack of a better term, 'zoned out' twice and been completely unaware of doing so, whilst also suffering facial tics. Your expression right now tells me this isn't news to you."

"I was going to mention it when school started," he mumbles.

"Mention what? And don't mumble."

"I might be epileptic."

"You 'might'?"

"The seizures started after I ran away so I couldn't ever see a doctor or anything. Hermione thinks it's probably because of my—because of when I was attacked as a kid."

"I wasn't aware Miss Granger had a degree in healing," Snape says dryly. "Of course a twelve year old girl is far better equipped to manage a serious medical condition than a licensed healer."

"I was _hiding_ ; I couldn't tell anyone and she just figured it out like you did. Besides, it was fine. I managed. But like I said, I was going to mention it. I just forgot about it when I was at the Hospital Wing."

* * *

They go back to the Dursleys so Harry can pick up the few clothes he has there and Snape can tell Petunia that Harry won't be living there anymore. Harry goes up to his room alone to fetch his stuff, and when he returns downstairs he pauses outside the kitchen, hearing voices from inside.

"...Lily would much prefer you looking after her brat."

He's never heard Petunia talk about her sister before, except to complain about her having the nerve to die and leave Harry to Petunia's care. He can't hear Snape's reply, just a murmur, and he can only hear half of what his aunt says next.

"... both got ... deserved..."

But he clearly hears her stifled, terrified shriek. Dudley obviously hears it too, because he comes thundering out of the sitting room, pushes past Harry and opens the kitchen door.

"Mum, are you okay?"

Petunia's backed up against the counters and Snape stands in the middle of the kitchen. His wand is tucked up against his arm, the black wood blending in with his black robe, and Dudley doesn't notice it at all, but Harry does.

"Have you got everything?" Snape asks, acting like nothing happened and slipping the wand into his pocket.

"Yeah."

Snape looks around at Petunia once more, glances at Dudley, who's looking nervously between Snape and his mother, and then stalks out the room, Harry following.

* * *

Snape's house only has two bedrooms. Snape points to the first and says if Harry so much as steps foot in it then he can expect to spend his first month at Hogwarts serving detention. The second is a little bigger than the one Harry had at the Dursleys and doesn't have a bed in it, just a small desk and a lot of books. Harry's starting to think Snape's a bigger bookworm than he is.

"We'll spend the rest of the afternoon clearing this room. One of the Hogwarts elves will be coming by at eight with a bed."

Harry nods. "Thank you, sir. I really appreciate you doing this."

Snape's only acknowledgement is a brief glance. "Start by removing the ones on the lower shelves. Keep them in order. I'll be back in a moment."

Harry kneels in front of a bookcase as Snape leaves. He comes back a few minutes later with an old and battered looking trunk that he sits in the middle of the room and casts an undetectable expansion charm on before he starts pulling down books as well.

* * *

"Sir, did you know my mother?"

They've finished clearing out the room and now sit in Snape's kitchen on either side of the small table eating slightly over-cooked stew. Snape's skills in potions apparently don't transfer to cooking.

"We were in the same year at Hogwarts."

"Were you friends?"

Snape doesn't answer immediately. His eyes are fixed on his meal and Harry watches him. He knows so little about either of his parents that's he's eager for any scrap of information he can get.

"As much as a Slytherin and Gryffindor can be," Snape answers eventually.

"She was in Gryffindor? What about my dad? Did you know him?"

"Finish eating. Afterwards you can wash up. I expect you to keep your room clean and help around the house as necessary while you're here."

Harry nods. The rest of the meal passes in silence.

That evening, after the house elf has delivered the bed, Harry shuts himself in the room and looks through the _Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1)_ until he finds a Cutting Curse. He doesn't really expect it to work, but he's going to try anyway. He has to take any chance he can at getting the cuffs off.

Unlike the Concealing Charm, the spell works on his first try—just not on his cuffs. He rushes to the cramped little bathroom and wads up a bunch of tissue to press to his bleeding arm, thinking maybe he should have tested it on a bit of parchment or something before he tried using it on anything so close to his skin, especially when the tissue is bright red and falling apart in mere seconds. He panics, reaches for the towel, then stops, thinking Snape won't be impressed if he gets blood all over his towels, even if it is navy and it wouldn't really be that obvious. But the blood really is gushing out scarily fast and maybe he should just call Snape anyway. He'll call Harry an idiot and probably take away his wand or something, but hopefully he'll do it after fixing his arm.

* * *

"Professor!"

Snape ignores the first call. If Harry wants to talk to him, he can damn well walk down the stairs to do it. He's not going to be summoned like some pet dog.

"Sir?"

He frowns. That sounds almost as if he's struggling not to cry.

"Sir, please..."

He gets up then, because that's not a tearful tone, but one of pure, unbridled panic.

The bedroom's empty but the bathroom door is ajar. He pushes it open and his heart drops. Harry's sprawled against the side of the bath tub, barely conscious, his left arm covered in blood that's dripping over the floor and soaking the towel gripped loosely in his right hand.

* * *

Harry wakes up in a hospital room. Snape's in a chair by the bed but he gets up when he notices Harry's awake. He doesn't say anything, just walks out the room and comes back soon after with a man wearing lime-green robes, who smiles at Harry and comes to stand by the bed.

"How are you feeling?" he asks as Harry sits up

"Alright."

"Gave us quite the scare, you know. You want to tell us what happened?"

"I was practising spells. The Cutting Curse."

"On _yourself_?"

"No! It was an accident. I didn't mean to!"

"Alright," he says placatingly, "that's fine, accidents happen. You're all healed up just fine anyway. The professor there stopped your bleeding and got you here quick, and we gave you a Blood Replenishment potion so you'll be just fine. You'll be free to go in the morning, so for now just get some rest, there's a good lad. And maybe leave practising any more magic until you're at Hogwarts, eh?"

When he's gone, Harry hesitantly looks over at Snape, wondering how much trouble he's in. Snape's face is carefully blank of any emotion, but his arms are folded over his chest and one leg's crossed over the other.

"Was this a suicide attempt?"

"What? No!"

"The Cutting Curse slices through whatever the wand is aimed it. You are competent enough to know how to hold a wand, so unless you suddenly lost all your senses, you cannot possibly have nearly killed yourself just by practising spells."

"I was trying to get the cuffs off. I thought a Cutting Curse might work but I didn't aim very well. I wasn't trying to kill myself, I swear."

Snape's voice is quietly furious. "You almost killed yourself because you couldn't be bothered to undo a simple buckle?"

"What? No. They're _stuck_. Didn't Dumbledore tell you about them?"

"Dumbledore does not concern himself with the ridiculous fashion choices of a stupid child."

"He put them on!" Harry half-yells. "They're magic suppression and he tricked me into putting them on and now he won't take them off and give me my magic back."

"What are you talking about?"

"If you don't know, I'm not telling."

"You almost gave me a heart attack by bleeding all over my bathroom; you _will_ tell me."

Harry flushes, looking down. He's got no rebuttal to that.

When he's finished reluctantly telling Snape about his Wish Magic, Snape draws his wand and drags the chair closer to the bed, grabbing Harry's hand and holding it still as he touches his wand to the cuff. He inspects them both, casting a few spells before eventually straightening up and slipping his wand away again.

"They're Magic Locked."

"I told you that."

"Magic Locked, not magically locked. A Magic Lock ties a spell into the caster, making it so they're the only person who can end it. Unless I'm much mistaken, your cuffs are Magic Locked by the headmaster; he's the only person who's able to remove them."

Harry feels like screaming.

"I hate him," he grumbles instead, flopping back against the pillows. "I hate him and I hope he gets eaten by a manticore."

He spends the rest of the night in the hospital and the next morning Snape arranges for him to see a specialist healer about his epilepsy and about the possibility of getting a magical eye to replace his useless left one.

Snape doesn't confiscate his wand, but he does make Harry write lines. Five hundred times he has to write out the sentence: _I will consider the consequences of my actions before I do anything_.

The next few weeks pass simply. He spends most of his time reading and practising magic under Snape's supervision. Snape doesn't have much of a garden but there's a river not far away and when the weather's good he takes a book and sits by it to read. His chores consist of doing the washing up after every meal and keeping the kitchen clean. He still sleeps a lot, but assumes it's just out of habit from the past month and he'll break it eventually.

He writes to Hermione and Neville, thanking them for their presents and telling Hermione that using owl post is fine and she can send letters back with his. He also asks Hermione to write a description of what it's like when he has a seizure, because when they booked his appointment the healer said that witness descriptions would be crucial to his diagnosis. He names his owl Hedwig and lets her out every night to go flying and hunting. Although Snape doesn't say anything about her, Harry gets the impression he's not happy about having an owl living in his house and Harry's careful to keep her cage and his room clean.

The night before he's due to see the healer, Snape clears his throat in the middle of dinner and says, "If you're determined not to be recognised as the Boy Who Lived, you may want to consider the option of a non-permanent iris re-colouration."

"A what?"

"An iris re-colouration. It's a procedure that changes the colour of your eye," he explains when Harry continues to look blank.

"Why would I do that?"

"Between your eyes and your chosen surname, anyone who knew your mother would be able to guess your parentage."

"From my _eyes_?"

Snape frowns. "Surely you're aware that your eyes are the same as your mother's."

Harry shakes his head. "I've never seen any pictures of her or my dad."

A long pause follows his statement. Harry continues to eat, eyes fixed on the spaghetti bolognese. Snape's own fork doesn't move until he speaks again.

"I will speak to Professor McGonagall. She was their Head of House; she may have photos that she can give you."

Harry jerks his head up. "Really? You'd do that?"

Snape scowls. "Not if you start spewing sickening amounts of gratitude."

Harry nods, but he can't help grinning and enthusiastically thanking him once.

For the epilepsy part of the meeting, he has an electroencephalogram—which involves casting a complex spell on his head and on a special quill, which then stands upright on a strip of parchment and records his brain activity—and spends a great deal of time answering numerous questions about his medical history, lifestyle, and his personal experience with seizures. When the healer, Kirith Karpel, starts asking about his family medical history, Snape surprises Harry by handing over a sheaf of papers and parchments containing all the relevant information.

Between that and Snape and Hermione's witness accounts, Kirith says it's highly likely that epilepsy is the problem, but that she still wants to do an MRI and she needs to do a prolonged EEG, which means spending anywhere from one day to a week in the hospital, and there's less than three weeks until term starts. There's no chance for him to get the EEG before late September, which means either taking time off from school or waiting until the winter holidays. Either way, Kirith decides to start him on an anti-convulsion potion that he'll have to take every day. It's one of three available anticonvulsants and Snape spends ten minutes discussing with Kirith why she's chosen that one over the others, apparently having read up on them prior to the appointment. Harry's also given a booklet with a variety of medical ID bracelets and a form so he can send off for one, and told to start keeping a seizure diary so they can keep track of when he has them.

"I'm sure you realise there are certain activities that you shouldn't be participating in unsupervised—flying, swimming, anything where having a seizure will put you at risk of serious harm."

"But I can fly, can't I? Just not alone."

"You can but I advise against it. Try to avoid extreme heights and make sure your flying partner is skilled enough to be able to catch you if you fall. It should be an adult, not just a friend."

She examines his eye next and Harry's not happy with the verdict.

"Physically, there's no reason I can't fit you with a replacement eye, however with any prosthetic we have to forge a magical nervous system to bring sensations and full manoeuvrability back. With something like an eye, it's especially delicate and in a child or teenager we have to be careful that the magical nerves won't interfere with their development. Doing so could affect them not only physically but magically. With epilepsy, you would be at even greater risk, and if there's scarring in your brain then it may not be possible to create a working magical nervous system at all. Whatever the case, I don't want to do anything until after the MRI and extended EEG."

He's disappointed, especially after reading the leaflets in the waiting room about the different types of magical eyes. He just assumes it'll be one that gives him his vision back; he hadn't realised that it's possible to get eyes that look through walls, or spin in the socket completely independent of his good eye, or ones that he can continue to look through even if he takes it out.


	11. Chapter 11

An owl brings a small parcel for Harry on the twenty-eighth. It's not the owl that normally brings Neville's letters and Hermione's always come with Hedwig, so he opens it with a frown. Inside is a photo album and a note.

_Mr Evans,_

_Professor Snape said you had no photos your parents. I asked several people who knew them if they had photographs to spare and this was the result. It might not make up for losing your parents, but I hope it helps._

_Yours,_

_Professor McGonagall_

Snape is right about him having his mother's eyes and he's glad he didn't ask for iris re-colouration, even temporarily, because it's a connection to his mother and he wouldn't give that up for the world. He's got his father's dark hair but his is tamer than James' wild mess, but that's all the similarity he can see between them and he supposes he must look mostly like Lily. He spends all morning looking at the pictures, staring at their happy, smiling faces, committing them to memory. He doesn't go downstairs and face Snape until he's sure the tears have dried and his eyes are no longer red.

On the thirty-first, Snape takes Harry and his belongings to Hermione's house in Oxford. He's going to stay with Hermione and her parents for the night then accompany them to King's Cross the next morning.

Mr and Mrs Granger are friendly people. Hermione confesses that she's told them about him—his true name and his fame—and he worries they'll ask questions and make a fuss, but they treat him like any other kid. They have Chinese takeout for dinner and Mr and Mrs Granger listen with indulgent smiles when Harry and Hermione get into a debate on the European vampire uprising.

They're on dessert when Hermione asks him, "So you can't do Wish Magic at all?"

"Nothing. Can't even turn a matchstick into a needle. It sucks."

"Well I'm sure Dumbledore's got a good reason."

"Yeah, he doesn't like a kid having so much power."

"Maybe he just wants you to learn how to do wand magic without your Wish Magic getting in the way, so you'll know how to do both if you ever need to."

Harry disagrees, but he doesn't argue with her. Hermione's clearly not going to believe that the famous Albus Dumbledore could do something like this for his own purposes. He doesn't mention that Dumbledore left Harry with his uncle despite knowing what he did; after all, Vernon hit him only once in the month he was there, so what does he really have to complain about?

Mrs Granger drives them to the station alone the next morning as Mr Granger has to work. Harry finds it strange to sit in a car; he hasn't travelled in one for years.

On the platform Harry shakes Mrs Granger's hand and thanks her for letting him stay with them then goes to grab a carriage while Hermione says goodbye, and they're joined by Neville five minutes before the train's due to leave.

The trip to Hogwarts is a lot better this time, when he's visible and can sit in a carriage without worrying about trying to stay hidden, and he can talk and laugh with his friends. He spends half of it sleeping though. He's not sure why he's so tired when he slept perfectly fine the night before.

He starts getting a bit nervous when they reach Hogsmeade and he steps on to the platform to hear Hagrid's booming voice calling for the first years. Hermione and Neville head off with the rest of the older students, leaving Harry to shuffle over to the group of first years, uncomfortably aware that he doesn't know any of them and wondering if he should have spent the journey meeting some of them instead of sitting with Hermione and Neville.

Crossing the lake, Harry's in a boat with three other boys. One of them throws up over the side as they cross, drawing disgusted noises from people in the nearby boats and a few laughs.

"It's okay," a blond, baby-faced boy says to Harry, who's eying the sick boy worriedly. "He gets travel sick and his potion's worn off. He'll be fine when we get back on land. I'm Alex Stone by the way. That's Tyler Lyle."

"Harry Evans. What about you?" he asks the fourth boy, who has electric blue hair.

"Ed Coleman. It was my brother's idea of a joke," he explains when Harry opens his mouth to ask about his hair.

Tyler doesn't look much better when they reach the castle, but he does stop throwing up. When McGonagall greets them in the Entrance Hall, she glances worriedly at Tyler and scolds Ed, but casts a spell to return his hair to a light brown when he explains that it was his brother's fault.

Ed is the first person to get sorted and goes to Ravenclaw looking pleased. Four more students are sorted and then McGonagall calls Harry's name.

_I wondered when you'd be back._

"Real student this time, so you can actually sort me."

_Hmm, the question is to where. An excellent mind, plenty of courage, talent abounds and—oh, a thirst to prove yourself. So where shall we put you?_

"Wherever I'll fit in."

_Yes, your desire to belong is... well, I think, in that case, you'd better be—_

"SLYTHERIN!"

He looks over at the Gryffindor table when he hops off the stool. Neville and Hermione look surprised but not hateful and Hermione even manages a weak smile. He turns and heads for the Slytherin table, nodding his thanks to the people who greet him. When he glances at the teachers' table, he catches Snape's eye and although the man's face doesn't change, Harry thinks maybe he approves.

Tyler ends up in Slytherin and Alex goes to Hufflepuff. Ginny Weasley is the last person to get sorted, going to Gryffindor, and then the tables pile with food and the hall fills with the noise of chattering voices and cutlery against plates.

"You alright?"

Tyler nods at Harry. He hasn't touched any of the food yet, although he's already downed a goblet of water. Now that Harry can see him properly in the light of the Great Hall, he's glad Alex mentioned that he's a boy because looking at him, Harry thinks he wouldn't be sure. Tyler's face is very androgynous and his mud-brown hair hangs past his shoulders. He could easily be mistaken for a girl.

"Yeah, just waiting for my stomach to settle. Harry, wasn't it?"

"Yeah, nice to meet you."

"You too. So... pleased about being in Slytherin?"

Harry shrugs. "It's okay, I guess. I've got a couple of friends in Gryffindor though; hopefully they won't mind me being a Slytherin."

"If they do just give 'em a punch, knock some sense into 'em, it usually works for me."

Harry can't tell if he's joking or not.

They're halfway through desert when the events of the year before come up.

"Is it true Harry Potter killed a teacher here last year?" asks a girl called Tabitha Sinclair. Harry almost chokes on his chocolate cake, but he should have known it would come up sooner or later.

"It's bullshit," says sixth year prefect Lisa Patterson. "Quirrell died, but it wasn't Potter. I've done the maths; he's only about twelve and if he was here, we'd have known about it."

"Shouldn't he be a student here then, if he's our age?"

"He could have gone to Beauxbatons or Durmstrang, but it's possible he's a squib."

That's greeted by mutters that suggest this has been discussed before and some people strongly disagree.

Another first year boy, Orion Devaux, scoffs. "He couldn't have defeated You Know Who if he were a squib," he says haughtily. "No squib would be able to do that."

"Unless he wasn't a squib initially," a third year suggests, "but the curse used on him and whatever it was that kept him alive drained his magic, left him useless. They'd certainly want to keep that quiet, which would explain why no one's seen or heard from him since it happened."

Harry's grateful when the discussion moves on to other things for the rest of the meal. After they've finished eating, Dumbledore stands and draws all their attention.

"Now that you've eaten I'd like to make a few announcements. Mr Filch would like me to remind you all that magic is not to be used in the corridors, and that the forest is strictly forbidden to all students. I would also like to introduce our newest member of staff, Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher Gilderoy Lockhart."

The applause for this announcement is thundering. A great deal of people stare dreamily at Lockhart, who stands up and bows then waves, smiles, and blows kisses at them all. So focused with his adoring fans, he doesn't seem to notice that the other half of the students look at him with disinterest or disgust. Harry doesn't much care for him. He flicked through the books during the summer and thought they sounded more like fiction stories than instructions on Defence Against the Dark Arts. When Snape saw him reading one, he looked like he wanted to grab it and burn it.

Lisa Patterson leads the first years down to the Slytherin common room. It's larger and more spaced out than Gryffindor, but darker and less welcoming, Harry thinks, despite the roaring fire. Lisa leads them past the sitting area to the doors to the dorms, gesturing to each as she speaks.

"Girls on my left, boys on my right. Curfew is at nine but you only have to be back in the common room by then—when you actually go to bed is your choice, but it's also your responsibility to get up on time in the morning. You'll get your class timetables at breakfast tomorrow so don't miss it. It's served from seven o'clock; first class is at half-eight. Welcome to Slytherin."

Harry's sharing the dorm with four other boys. As well as Tyler and Orion, there's Stuart Travis, who's tall, with a buzzcut, and hardly speaks, and Cid Villiers, who swears colourfully shortly after introducing himself.

"You guys don't mind if I sleep in the buff, right? I've forgotten my pyjamas."

Harry has no idea what to say to that. He's not sure he does approve, but he doesn't think Cid will listen even if he says no.

" _I_ mind," Orion says like his is the only opinion that matters. "You may sleep in your underwear."

Cid turns on him, expression incredulous. "'I may'? The fuck do you think you are, my mother?"

Orion sniffs. "I'm sure your mother would wash your mouth out if she could hear you right now."

"Yeah," Cid says, unconcerned, "that good ol' Bubble Mouth Hex. It's not so bad after the first seven or eight times."

Harry clears his throat. "Guys, I need to tell you all something."

Tyler jumps onto his bed, looking at Harry expectantly as he pulls a fluffy white cat on his lap and pets her; Cid doesn't look up from digging through his trunk just in case he missed his pyjamas the first time; Orion settles his gaze on Harry like it's a chore he's gracefully doing and ought to be congratulated for it; and Stuart stops on his way to the door, toiletry bag in hand.

"I'm epileptic. I don't know if you know what that is but it means I have seizures sometimes, but it's nothing serious, I just need to let you know so that if it happens you don't freak out or anything."

"What's a seizure?" Cid asks, still digging through his trunk.

"Isn't that where you fall over and start shaking and stuff?" Tyler says.

"The bad ones, yeah. If that happens you need to get Madam Pomfrey or a professor, but most of the time, it's just little ones and I sort of zone out for a couple of minutes and sometimes my face or my hands will twitch or something. It probably looks weird, but like I said it's—"

He's interrupted by the door opening and Draco Malfoy stalking into the room.

"So, you're the new first years," he says, looking at each of them critically. "You don't look like much." His eyes settle on Tyler and he blinks. "You're in the wrong dorm. Girls are over the other side."

Tyler rolls his eyes, pushing his cat down as she noses at his chin. He's clearly had people saying things like that before. "I can show you my dick if you want."

Orion's lip curls. "You're all disgusting."

"Who are you?" Malfoy asks him.

"Orion Damian Lucas Devaux. To whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?"

Cid sniggers. Orion ignores him.

"Draco Malfoy. Are you related to Arianne Devaux?"

Orion nods. "She's my mother's cousin."

Malfoy almost looks impressed. "My father speaks well of her." He turns on Harry. "What's your name, shorty? What's wrong with your eye?"

"It's blind. I'm Harry Evans."

"You pureblood?"

"Half."

"Hmph. At least you're not a complete Mudblood. What about you?" he asks Tyler. "What's your name and status?"

"Tyler Lyle and none of your business."

"You can't be _Muggleborn_?" Orion asks as if he genuinely can't believe it's possible. "Not in Slytherin."

Malfoy shoots him an approving glance. Tyler looks annoyed.

"Half."

Malfoy rounds on Cid. "What about you?"

"Cid Villiers. Purer than angel's piss, but I've got nothing against half-bloods," he says with a glance at Harry and Tyler.

"Stuart Travis, pureblood," Stuart says in a quiet, but not nervous, voice when Malfoy looks at him.

"Excellent," Orion declares, grabbing his toiletry bag from his trunk. "You and I are friends. I'm not hanging around halfies and that vulgar boy anymore than I have to."

Stuart doesn't look concerned that he's just been told they're friends regardless of whether he wants to be, just traipses out the room after Orion and toward the bathroom.

* * *

Harry's the first one up the next morning and although it's the first day and he's looking forward to it, he considers going back to sleep, tired despite a decent night's sleep. He showers, dresses, debates taking his bag but decides against it as he doesn't yet know what books he'll need for the day, and makes sure the lock is secure on his trunk. It's not so much that he doesn't trust his roommates not to steal his things—well, he thinks, until he knows them better he won't trust them, but that's just common sense—but he doesn't want them finding out he still has a teddy bear and his baby blanket. He keeps them and his figurines inside his backpack—he bought a messenger bag to use for school—and keeps it tucked at the bottom of his trunk, but he'll never live it down if anyone finds out.

He's not the first one in the common room. There's a first year girl there, dark hair that hangs halfway down her back and a bag at her feet. She turns when she hears him come through and looks disappointed to see him. He smiles a greeting that she returns before looking away again. He heads for the entrance and is halfway out when she speaks.

"Are you going to the Great Hall?"

"I need to go to the Hospital Wing first, but afterwards I will be."

He was annoyed when Snape told him he has to go to the Hospital Wing every morning for his anticonvulsant, but school rules say Madam Pomfrey handles all the medicinal potions for first and second years.

"Really? I need to go there too. Do you know the way?"

"Yeah. You can come with me if you want."

She hesitates, glancing towards the door to the girls' dorms, but then picks up her bag and follows him out.

"I'm Jia Liao. My sister was supposed to show me, but she always oversleeps and I'd hate to have to miss breakfast, so thank you for showing me."

"It's no problem. I'm Harry Evans."

"How do you know the way? You are a first year, aren't you?"

He nods. "I spent some time in the castle last year though. I know the layout pretty well."

"Do you mind if I stay with you then? My sister said it's really easy to get lost and from what I saw yesterday, she's probably right."

"Sure. I don't mind."

They discuss classes as they walk. Jia's looking forward to studying Potions and Herbology. She's already decided that she wants to be a master potioneer when she grows up.

"What about you? What do you want to be when you're older?"

Writer. Historian. Adventurer. Auror. Teacher. Minster for Magic. Assassin. Healer. Office worker. Charms expert. Animal breeder. Inventor. Book store owner. Husband. Parent. Home owner. Old man. Alive.

Harry shrugs. "Never really thought about it."

At the Hospital Wing, Jia doesn't ask what his potion is for. He follows her lead and doesn't ask about hers.

When they get to the Great Hall, about half the students are already there. They head over to the Slytherin table and sit with the other first years girls—Tabitha Sinclair, Toni Kaidkin, and Victoria Vaisey. The rest of the boys haven't arrived yet, but they turn up just as Snape hands out their timetables.

They have Transfiguration, Herbology, and History of Magic that day. Harry earns Slytherin five house points by answering several of Professor Sprout's questions in Herbology and another twenty when he's the only person to completely transform a matchstick into a needle during Transfiguration. It makes up for History of Magic still being the dullest class in existence.

Sprout's only homework for them is a bit of reading, but McGonagall sets them a short essay. Harry sits in the common room working on it with Jia then excuses himself to the dorm with the intention of reading the Herbology text before going to bed, but Cid snatches the book away, telling him they've got plenty of time to study and dragging him over to Tyler's bed to spend the rest of the evening talking.

"So which of your parents is the Muggle?" Cid asks them both. Harry tells them his mother is Muggleborn, but Tyler confesses, "I'm actually only a half-blood by adoption."

Cid shrugs. Harry's confused. "What do you mean?"

"It means his birth parents are Muggle," Cid explains, "but his adopted ones are magical."

"Just an adopted dad—Marcus. You don't know about magical adoption, do you?" Tyler says to Harry, who still looks confused. "Magical adoptions include a blood ritual so the child actually becomes genetically connected to their adopted parents. It makes them a completely legitimate heir, even if the parents have other, non-adopted children. It even affects appearances. I had a smaller nose and bigger ears before I was adopted by Marcus, and my eyes were more green than blue."

"Oh, that's... impressive."

Tyler nods. "I'll say. But for people like me it means I pass as a half-blood even though my parents—or my mother at least; I've never met my birth father—was Muggle, although for the real blood purists I'm still lower on the social ladder, and there's some that don't believe adoption rituals counteract Muggle blood. I'd prefer people like Devaux and Malfoy think I've got one magical birth parent, though."

As they don't care either way about his blood status, Cid and Harry both agree to keep it quiet.

The rest of the week passes normally, but the lessons aren't that interesting to Harry. He already knows most of what they cover. The only new thing is Defence Against the Dark Arts as taught by Lockhart, and it's not new in a good way. Lockhart is a pompous arse and it takes all of ten minutes for Harry to decide he doesn't like him. He's full of himself and he can't teach worth a damn, just talks about himself all the time. After three lessons, Harry actually thinks having a Voldemort-possessed-Quirrell for a teacher is better.

On Saturday morning, Harry gets a small parcel delivered to him at breakfast containing his medical bracelet. Before he can slip it on, a hand reaches over his shoulder and snatches it up.

"You wear jewellery? Merlin, I swear half you first years are girls pretending to be boys."

Before Harry can respond to Malfoy's sneering comment, Jia, sat next to him, whirls in her seat and snatches the bracelet back. "There's nothing wrong with boys wanting to be girls, and even if there was, boys can wear jewellery too."

She hands the bracelet back to Harry, who slips it on his wrist with a murmured thanks.

"Whatever," Malfoy mutters. "You should at least buy something _decent_ instead of that tacky thing. It doesn't even go with those ugly cuffs you wear."

"This tacky thing could save my life, so I'm sticking with it."

* * *

He hears the voice that evening, while he's in the bath.

" _Come... come to me... Let me rip you... Let me tear you... Let me kill you..._ "

He jumps, splashing water over the sides of the tub. "Who's there?"

There's no answer and he hasn't heard the door to the bathroom open or close. He reaches for the edge of the curtain, pulling it aside just enough to peer around, but there's no one else there. He lets it fall straight again, frowning. He doesn't hear anything more and by the time he gets out and starts drying off, he convinces himself he's just hearing things.


	12. Chapter 12

"Are we still friends or are we not allowed because I'm a Slytherin now?"

Hermione and Neville look up as he drops into the spare chair at their table in the library on Sunday. It's the first time he's had a chance to really speak to them since term started.

Hermione looks offended. "Of course we're still friends."

"As long as you don't start turning into Malfoy."

"Neville!"

But Harry smiles, relaxing. "You don't have to worry about that. He's a prick."

"What's it like living in the house of snakes?"

Harry shrugs. "Not so bad. Like I said, Malfoy's a prick, and there's a boy in my dorm, Orion Devaux, he's a pompous idiot, but Tyler and Cid are cool and Jia's nice."

"How are you finding classes and casting without Wish Magic?" Hermione asks him.

"It's alright. I still want it back, but I'm not having trouble with wand magic. To be honest classes are kind of boring. I know all the theory already and I'm picking up most of the spells fairly easily. I want to take second year classes. What do you think of Lockhart?"

Neville groans. "He's _awful_."

"He is not," Hermione defends.

"He is. Our first class," Neville tells Harry, "he brought in a cage of Cornish Pixes and released them into the classroom and then he left _us_ to clear them up. He couldn't control them at all."

Hermione's frowning. "You make it sound like he's completely useless."

"He _is_ completely useless. Hermione, those pixies hung me from the chandelier. You were the only one that could do anything about them. We'd all be better off with you as a teacher."

* * *

The second week of term brings the news that the Slytherins will be having their first flying lesson and they'll be sharing it with the Hufflepuffs. For most of them, this is good news. Everyone is looking forward to flying lessons—except Tyler.

"I don't fly. I'm not getting on a broom."

"It's not that terrible," Cid tries to convince him. "Surely you can't get sick from hovering a few feet off the ground. It's not like Madam Hooch will let us fly fast or anything, not on our first lesson."

"I get sick riding a bicycle."

"I think you're just bitching because we're having it with the Hufflepuffs."

Tyler's responding scowl says Cid isn't entirely wrong. Since the second day of classes, Alex Stone, whom Tyler has been best friends with since they were six, has been ignoring him. Apparently Tyler being a Slytherin and Alex a Hufflepuff means they can't hang out anymore.

Tyler needn't have worried about flying class. Madam Hooch spends so much of the class telling others to stop flying so high that she hardly pays attention to the fact that Tyler barely leaves the ground. Harry's amongst those who're regularly scolded; Hooch even points out that he's under flying restrictions as it is. But as he's survived a fall of twenty feet, even if it wasn't completely unharmed, he's not satisfied with having to stay under ten feet.

They have Herbology after lunch that same day and it's during this that Jia says to Harry, "Don't you ever take notes?"

He looks at the bit of parchment in front of him. It's covered with doodles and the occasional key phrase from Sprout's lecture, whereas Jia's parchment is thick with notes as she tries to copy down every word Sprout says.

"Not really. I'm pretty good at remembering stuff." He has to be when he taught himself. It was far too much hassle to steal and keep track of notebooks and pens so he learnt to absorb and memorise as much information as he can simply from reading and listening.

"Well don't come running to me when you need to borrow notes to study for the end of year exams."

* * *

"Harry. _Harry._ "

Fingers jab his ribs and he jerks up, blinking stupidly as he looks at Jia, who jerks her head sideways and Harry turns to look forwards.

"Is my class that boring, Mr Evans?" asks McGonagall, and Harry flushes.

"Sorry, professor."

"Five points from Slytherin. Sleep in your dormitory, Mr Evans, not my classroom."

He nods and tried not to fall asleep again as she resumes her lecture. They have lunch afterwards, but he hardly touches it.

"Are you okay?" Jia asks worriedly, watching him from across the table.

"Yeah. Just tired."

"You're tired a lot. Is it because of your epilepsy?"

Harry shakes his head. It's the middle of October and Jia's right that he is tired a lot. He's not sure why; he's getting plenty of sleep and it's not like he's doing anything strenuous to drain his energy.

"It might be my potion," he suggests when she continues to look worried. "I think tiredness might have been one of the side effects. I'll ask Madam Pomfrey about it."

He doesn't go to Pomfrey, but he does visit Snape's office that evening, knowing he's read up on the potion. He asks if it might be causing his tiredness and Snape agrees it's possible, but doesn't look convinced.

"I would have expected you to have shown side-effects before now, but I'll contact Healer Karpel. In the mean time, try and get plenty of sleep," he says, and his tone and expression let Harry know that McGonagall's told him about Harry's little nap earlier.

The upper years have a Hogsmeade weekend on Hallowe'en. Harry and the other first years take advantage of the mostly empty common room to play games and listen to the second years' rendition of the troll from the year before. Harry has to bite his tongue as he listens to Malfoy talk about how the troll very nearly clubbed him to death and he only survived by the skin of his teeth using some quick spellwork.

The Hallowe'en feast, Harry decides, is much more enjoyable when he can sit at a table and it's not interrupted by trolls in the castle. After, when they about to head back down to the dungeons, they stop when there's a commotion from the second floor and someone's voice calls, "Mrs Norris has been killed!"

When they reach the second floor, there's already a mass of students blocking the corridor. As the smallest, Harry pushes through the crowd, wriggling through gaps between people until he reaches the front. In the middle of the corridor, between Harry's crowd and another group at the other side, are Hermione and Neville, both looking anxious. Pinned to the wall is Mrs Norris and underneath her, painted in foot high letters, are the words:

_THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED_

_ENEMIES OF THE HEIR BEWARE_

Draco Malfoy pushes forwards, elbowing Harry aside and grinning broadly as he fixes his gaze on Hermione. "Enemies of the Heir, beware! You'll be next, Mudbloods!"

Before Harry gets a chance to ask Hermione or Neville what happened, the crowd behind him parts to let Filch through. Silence falls as everyone watches him reach the centre, notice his cat, and then advance on Neville and Hermione with eyes full of rage.

"Argus!"

Professor Dumbledore slips through the crowd, closely followed by several other professors. He approaches the three people between the two crowds, takes in the situation, unpins Mrs Norris then dismisses the rest of the students and beckons Mr Filch and the two Gryffindors to follow him. Harry hesitates, looking after Neville and Hermione and damning Dumbledore. If he had his Wish Magic, he'd turn himself invisible and follow them, but he's forced to turn away and head back to Slytherin with the rest of the students.

"What's the Chamber of Secrets?" Tyler asks when Harry tells him and Cid about what happened. They sit in the dorm and Harry digs through his trunk for his copy of _Hogwarts: A History_. When he finds it, he flicks through it until he finds the passage about the Chamber of Secrets.

"'The Chamber of Secrets'," he reads, "'is a legendary chamber hidden somewhere within Hogwarts and is said to be the home of a terrible monster, left behind by the founder Salazar Slytherin. It is said that when Slytherin's one true heir returns to Hogwarts, he will open the chamber and purge the school of all those with impure blood.'"

"Impure... so people like me."

Cid shakes his head. "No one but us knows about you; you're probably alright."

"'Probably alright'," Tyler repeats as his cat, Aurora, jumps up on his lap. "That's not comforting. Is there seriously a monster going around attacking people? What kind of monster anyway? That's a bit vague."

"It doesn't say," Harry answers, closing the book. "But it's probably not real. It's just a legend. If there was a monster under the school, someone would have found it sometime in the last thousand years."

"So what happened to Mrs Norris?"

"Student prank," Cid answers airily. "It's not like there's anyone who likes Filch or that fucking cat."

Tyler doesn't look convinced.

* * *

Harry leaves the Great Hall at breakfast the next day at the same time Hermione and Neville do and the three of them slip into an empty classroom so the two Gryffindors can tell Harry about what happened the night before. They went to Nearly Headless Nick's deathday party and found Mrs Norris on their way back to Gryffindor afterwards. Dumbledore declared Mrs Norris only petrified, not dead, and would be cured just as soon as Professor Sprout's Mandrakes have matured enough to be used in a potion.

"I'm going to the library to research this Chamber of Secrets thing," Hermione tells them. "I'm sure I've read about it somewhere before but I can't remember where."

"It's in _Hogwarts: A History_ ," Harry mentions, following her out of the room. "But there's not much in there on it. It only briefly mentions the chamber and doesn't give anything useful."

"I'll have to borrow a copy from the library; I left mine at home so I could fit all Lockhart's books in my trunk."

Behind her, Neville rolls his eyes and Harry suppresses a smile. He had a similar problem, but Snape was kind enough to shrink his Lockhart books down to the size of a postage stamp, muttering a comment about how they ought to stay that way.

They spends several hours in the library, searching through books. Neville leaves them after only a couple, claiming he's spent enough time around books to last him the rest of the term. Harry stays, though he gives up reading to lay his head on his arms and snooze until Hermione wakes him again.

"Who do you think it is?"

"Who do I think is what?"

"The heir of Slytherin."

Harry lifts his head, yawning and stretching.

"You think it's real? You really believe Slytherin's heir is at Hogwarts and attacking students?"

"Dumbledore couldn't cure Mrs Norris, which makes me think whoever attacked her might not be... well, human."

"Are you worried?"

She looks surprised at the question. "Worried?"

"That you might... y'know."

"Oh," she says, blinking. "No, I hadn't actually thought of that. I've been so focused on the legend I forgot that I'm one of the 'impure'."

"If it is real, then whoever it is is probably a first or seventh year," Harry says, resting his head on his arms again and closing his eyes.

"Why do you say that?"

"Because this is the first time it's happened, which means either they've only just got to the school—a first year—or they're not worried about the consequences of being caught anymore because they'll be leaving soon—a seventh year."

"Unless they've only just found the Chamber themselves."

"Possible, but it seems like the kind of thing that'd be passed along the family really, you know from father to son and that sort of thing."

"Do you think..."

"Do I think what?"

"Did you hear what Malfoy said last night?"

"The 'You'll be next, Mudbloods'? Yeah, I heard. I should have kicked him for it."

"Do you think he could be the heir?"

" _Malfoy?_ " he asks incredulously, lifting his head, then pauses. "Mind you... he was looking pretty smug this morning, and he's always boasting about how his family's been in Slytherin for generations. I guess it's possible."

"You could keep an eye on him," she suggests. "And everyone else in Slytherin, see who looks suspicious."

"Everyone in Slytherin's suspicious. I doubt the heir's going to start boasting about it, even down there. We like our secrets too much."

* * *

The next weekend holds the first Quidditch match of the year, between Gryffindor and Slytherin. It takes all of five minutes for Harry to decide he much prefers standing in the crowd and cheering on Slytherin with the rest of his house than standing on the sidelines or hovering over the spectators, unsure of who he wants to cheer for.

Gryffindor win by over two hundred points. Nick Coleman, the Gryffindor Seeker, has clearly been practising; his flying has improved a lot since last year, Harry thinks, and it's made their already great team even better.

"We wouldn't have lost if _I'd_ been playing," he overhears Malfoy proclaim to Theodore Nott and Pansy Parkinson on the way back to the castle.

"Why didn't you try out for the team?" Pansy asks him, hanging onto his every word like he's spewing gold.

"I wanted to but Father wants me to focus on my studies. I'll join next year, though. When I'm on the team, Slytherin won't lose a single match."

That night, Colin Creevey is petrified as he's sneaking down to the kitchens for a midnight snack. By Monday, the entire school's heard about it and the fear that'd been only mild when Mrs Norris was attacked is now schoolwide. There are all sorts of rumours and suspicions about who the culprit is, including some suggestions that leave Harry's head boggling.

"Tara Williams?" he repeats incredulously to Ed Coleman in their Ravenclaw-Slytherin Herbology class. "The Head Girl? She's a Hufflepuff!"

Ed shrugs. "Nick reckons that makes her a prime suspect. Everyone's going to think it's a Slytherin student while the heir's sat in one of the other common rooms, laughing at the panic and pretending they're perfectly innocent."

Harry thinks that's unlikely, not if the heir is anything like Malfoy or the other purebloods who are so proud of being in Slytherin and make snide comments about how they'd have died on the spot if they got sorted into Hufflepuff.

* * *

Harry's pretty sure Hermione and Neville are up to something. They're acting very secretive and make excuses not to hang out with him on Sundays, as they usually do. He might be bothered by it if he weren't so tired.

When he falls asleep in Potions class halfway through November, Snape sends him up to the Hospital Wing with a note asking Pomfrey to do a full physical exam. His persistent tiredness shouldn't be caused by his anticonvulsant, but Pomfrey doesn't find anything wrong with him. She does let him stay and sleep in one of the beds for the rest of the afternoon though.

He gets a letter at the start of December from Kirith Karpel that says his MRI and prolonged EEG are booked for the twenty-ninth; the MRI being in the morning and the EEG starting afterwards and continuing for as long as necessary. She suggests that Harry stop taking the anti-convulsant for the run up; it hasn't helped at all anyway and after the EEG Kirith is going to try him on a different one. Harry can hardly find the energy to be pleased about it, but he's glad the holidays are finally in view. He looks forward to being able to sleep without worrying about getting up in the morning for classes. He hopes that the two week break will give him a chance to recuperate and get enough rest to appease his body.

A couple of weeks before the end of term, notices for a duelling club appear on all the noticeboards. Harry's quite interested in the idea and he turns up on the evening of the last Thursday before the holidays feeling excited despite his tiredness. His excitement vanishes, however, when Gilderoy Lockhart walks onto the stage. His attitude towards the Defence professor hasn't improved and he thinks of leaving and just going to bed, but stops when Lockhart introduces Snape as his assistant. The idea of Snape fighting Lockhart is too good to pass up.

He cheers with several other Slytherins when Snape blasts Lockhart off his feet with a Disarming Spell. When they get paired up to practice it, Harry is put with Jia, but neither of them manage it very well. Harry manages to make her wand jiggle a little in her grip, but it doesn't jump out of her hand nor knock her off her feet, and her attempt at the spell does nothing at all.

They're one of the few couples who actually attempt the Disarming Spell as ordered. Most people take the opportunity to instead throw all manner of hexes and curses at the other students. When Lockhart calls for them to stop and everyone's been cured of whatever malady's befallen them, he looks around and says, "I think I better teach you how to _block_ unfriendly spells. How about a volunteer pair—Longbottom and Finch-Fletchley."

"A bad idea, Professor Lockhart," Snape counters with a sneer. "Longbottom causes devastation with the simplest of spells. We'll be sending Finch-Fletchley to the Hospital Wing in a matchbox. Might I suggest Malfoy and Weasley instead?"

Harry frowns as he hears the rest of the Slytherins snigger, noticing Neville going red and Hermione glaring angrily at Snape.

Ron and Malfoy get up on stage and face each other. Lockhart demonstrates a Blocking Spell—or at least attempts to—then the boys get ready to duel. Lockhart counts down from three, but Malfoy is over-eager. On two he twirls his wand and shouts, " _Serpensortia!_ " and a long, back snake shoots out the end.

Several people scream. Ron squeaks like a frightened mouse and staggers back away from the snake. The snake, apparently unhappy about being thrust out the end of a wand half its size, hisses and rears up, turning to the person nearest—a terrified Justin Finch-Fletchley.

" _Stop!_ "

Harry doesn't even think about. He's not even sure what makes him do it, just that he sees the snake going for Justin and automatically orders it not to despite knowing his Wish Magic won't work. But the snake does stop and he's not sure who's more surprised—him or the rest of the students, who now all stares at him. It takes a moment for him to realise that they're not looking with expressions of impressiveness or, as he'd expect from Justin, gratitude, but instead expressions of fear and suspicion.

Snape steps forward and vanishes the snake with a wave of his wand. Harry isn't sure what to make of his expression. When he's vanished the snake, he steps off the stage and stalks over to Harry, grabbing him by the shoulder.

"My office. Now."

As he walks Harry out the hall, the rest of the students part out of the way like they're afraid they'll catch something if they get too close to him. When Harry looks around and catches Hermione's eyes, she looks almost afraid.

Snape practically pushes him into a chair when they reach his office and stands on the other side, looking down at Harry with arms folded over his chest.

"Are you aware you're a Parselmouth?"

"Um... no? I mean, I'm not. I don't think."

"Then would you care to explain what just happened in the Great Hall?"

"With the snake? I just told it to stop. I guess Dumbledore's cuffs aren't working properly anymore."

"The snake did not stop because of your Wish Magic; it stopped because you spoke to it in Parseltongue."

Suddenly the fear and suspicion make sense. He and Hermione read about Parseltongue while searching for information about the Chamber of Secrets and Salazar Slytherin. It was a famous skill of his, the reason Slytherin's house symbol is a snake, and widely considered a trait of dark wizards. Now Harry has just revealed to the entire school that he can speak it right when Slytherin's heir is terrorising the school.

He's greeted by silence when he gets back to Slytherin, but it doesn't last long. Malfoy gets up from his chair, stalking forwards to stand in front of Harry.

"You're _not_ the heir of Slytherin," he says furiously.

"No, I'm not."

"Good. I'm glad that's clear because the heir of Slytherin, whoever he is, is a respectful pureblood wizard, not some half blind half-blood who befriends Mudbloods and blood traitors."

He doesn't say anything about Malfoy calling Hermione a Mudblood or even care that Malfoy's insulting him; he's grateful that someone thinks he's innocent, for whatever reason it may be.

Tyler's the only one in the dorm when Harry gets there. Harry pauses in the doorway.

"I'm not the heir of Slytherin," he blurts.

"Excuse me if I don't believe _that_."

* * *

Harry's even more glad it's the last day of term as he trudges from the Great Hall to Charms class after lunch, alone because Cid's siding with Tyler and Jia's just plain ignoring him. Malfoy and a few of the other Slytherins are the only ones who aren't convinced he's the heir. Even Hermione and Neville don't believe him when he tries to talk to them at lunch.

He hears the voice again during class, the hissing one talking about killing. He drops his quill and jerks his head up, looking around, but the class is silent, everyone bent over bits of parchment as they answer the questions on the board. Harry picks up his quill again, ignoring the weird look Cid gives him. He's starting to wonder if he's going mad.

The seizure happens ten minutes before the end of Charms and it's the first tonic clonic one he's had since February, when he taught himself to Apparate. Flitwick sends Jia to fetch Madam Pomfrey, but just around the corner from the classroom she finds Justin Finch-Fletchley and Nearly Headless Nick petrified.

The new victims keeps Madam Pomfrey and the other teachers distracted for so long that it's almost dinner before Madam Pomfrey realises Harry hasn't woken up since his seizure, when he's brought into the Hospital Wing and laid on a bed then left alone as the Justin and Nick are dealt with. When she tries waking him up for dinner, he doesn't respond and when he won't even react to _rennervate_ she realises there's something seriously wrong.


	13. Chapter 13

When Madam Pomfrey can't figure out what's wrong with Harry, she calls in Kirith Karpel, who spends an hour intently examining Harry.

"Well?" Snape demands as soon as she straightens up.

"It's not related to his epilepsy. I've checked for dark magic, but all he has on him is residual... sparks, so to speak... around his scar. Surprising given how long it's been, but considering the uniqueness of it—"

"Is it what's affecting him?"

"No. Dark magic isn't what's doing this."

"Then what is?"

"Severus, calm yourself," Dumbledore says quietly, which doesn't help.

"That boy is _dying_ and none of you can figure out what's wrong with him," Snape snarls. "Don't tell me to calm down, Albus."

It's three days since Harry's seizure. He's completely comatose, his heart rate is dropping by the day, and twice he stops breathing and needs resuscitating.

"If you'd let me speak," Kirith says sharply, "I have a theory but I need to call a colleague to do an exam, so if you'll excuse me..."

"We will find out what's wrong with him, Severus," Dumbledore says when she's disappeared into Pomfrey's office. "He will not die."

Kirith's colleague is called Healer Hopkins, a tall, broad man who looks like he should be playing rugby rather than healing people, but it takes him less than fifteen minutes to finish his examination.

"These cuffs, am I right in thinking they're magic suppressants?"

"You are," Dumbledore answers.

"They're killing him," Hopkins says bluntly. "Whoever put them on needs to take them off now."

Snape whirls on Dumbledore, face furious. Dumbledore pretends not to notice and draws his wand, stepping up to the bed and tapping his wand to the cuffs, one after the other.

Every window, water jug, and glass in the Hospital Wing smashes, filling the room with the roaring sound of breaking glass. Only when the noise settles and wind and snow blow through the open windows do they realise there's a swarm of butterflies fluttering about overhead and every piece of furniture in the room is hovering inches off the floor.

"What on earth...?"

"This is Harry's doing, I believe," Dumbledore answers Madam Pomfrey, waving his wand to repair the windows. Pomfrey gets a hold of herself and hurries over to check the petrified victims, making sure they haven't been hurt by any of the flying glass. Nearly Headless Nick is unfortunately stuck in a bed, not being able to move with it, and when Pomfrey tries pushing it down, it resists and she's forced to leave the poor ghost trapped.

"His magical power is immense," Hopkins explains about Harry, "and his magic is pouring out of him. I imagine he's got instinctive control over it, abilities way beyond someone of his age even without training, but probably a lot of emotional outbursts? Well when you put those cuffs on," he continues when Dumbledore and Snape nod, "it didn't stop his power, it just restricted his access to it. Think of his magic as a river. The cuffs were a dam that reduced it to a stream, but the spring, if you will, was pushing out more magic than he was using. When it couldn't properly release itself, it built up and the pressure of it was too much for his body to handle, so it started shutting down. This," he says, gesturing to the floating beds and the butterflies, "is his magic finally releasing itself. It might be little while before it settles down again."

When Hopkins and Kirith have left and Pomfrey's gone to her office, Snape turns on Dumbledore, eyes furious, and cuts off the headmaster's apology to snarl, "When he wakes up, _you_ can tell him who's responsible for his nearly dying."

* * *

An entire day passes before the butterflies disappear and the beds settle down, and another day before Harry finally wakes up. Pomfrey checks him over and gives him some water then informs Dumbledore and Snape. Snape doesn't come see him, but Dumbledore does.

Harry doesn't think he's a bad person. A bad person would hurt Dumbledore for almost killing him. A bad person would make Dumbledore almost die as well. A bad person would... well, do bad things.

Turning Dumbledore into a slug, Harry tells himself, isn't a bad thing. Really it's not, as long as he intends to turn Dumbledore back. Which he does. And it's not bad to pour a circle of salt around Dumbledore The Slug either. Dumbledore is intelligent, after all. He would know not to touch the salt, even as a slug. And if Harry spends half a minute with the salt pot held precariously over the slug, that still doesn't make him a bad person, because he didn't actually pour any of the salt on him.

He turns Dumbledore back after half a day, not smirking at the slime on the headmaster's robe nor giving him chance to speak and scold Harry for his actions.

"Unless you, as Hogwarts Headmaster, need to speak to me as a Hogwarts student, then stay the hell away from me," he warns, and is glad to see Dumbledore's expression perfectly serious.

"I will not interfere with you again, Harry," Dumbledore promises him solemnly, "but rest assured that if you use your magic against people as you did against me, I will have you expelled and, if necessary, arrested."

"I'll only use it on people who deserve it. If someone hurts me, or tries to do something like you did, I will defend myself."

Dumbledore considers him for a moment and then nods. "I am sorry, Harry, for causing you such harm."

Madam Pomfrey keeps him in for another day and he spends it exercising his magic, conjuring things, turning himself invisible, transfiguring anything within his reach. He can keep his scar hidden without having to rely on the Concealing Charm, which he's glad about. It feels good to have his Wish Magic back. He's released after lunch on Christmas Eve and Hermione and Neville greet him outside the Hospital Wing. Hermione hugs him and smiles widely.

"I'm so glad you're alright. No one would tell us what was wrong with you. They just said there were some complications after your last seizure."

"It was Dumbledore's cuffs. My body couldn't handle having my magic suppressed. I'm surprised you're here though."

Hermione bites her lip and wrings her hands and Neville looks guilty.

"We're sorry," he says. "We should have believed you when you said you weren't the heir."

"What made you change your minds?"

"Don't you know?" Hermione asks, surprised. "Justin and Nearly Headless Nick were petrified."

"I know, but why would that convince you?"

"It happened while you were in class. Flitwick and your whole class are witnesses that you were there when it happened, and they say you had your seizure right before they were found. It couldn't have been you."

"There are still some who think it's you," Neville tells him, "but most people know it isn't."

He returns to Slytherin, where he has the first year dorm to himself as he's the only one staying behind for the holidays. Shortly after he gets there Malfoy barges in without knocking, looking him over critically.

"I heard you died, Evans."

"You wish, Malfoy."

"What was wrong with you?"

"Complications from my seizure. Can you get out of my way? I haven't washed in nearly a week and I'd really like a shower."

* * *

He wakes up the next morning to find a small pile of gifts at the end of his bed. He gets a luxury eagle-feather quill from Hermione and an accompanying jar of colour-changing ink from Neville, an extra large box of Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans from Tyler, a fancy notebook from Jia who still thinks he should make more notes in classes, and from Cid he gets a rubber duck that quacks rude words when the water gets too cold. He assumes that the gifts from his friends mean they're not among those who still think he's the heir of Slytherin.

His last present is light and squishy and comes with a note that reads:

_Your father left this in my possession before he died. I hope you will find some use for it regardless of your power. – A. Dumbledore._

If it weren't for the first few words, he would toss it aside unopened, but he doesn't care that it comes from Dumbledore when what's inside used to be his father's. He doesn't even care that he can turn invisible without the use of an Invisibility Cloak. It could be a dirty sock for all he cares; the fact that he now owns something that used to belong to his dad is more important than anything else.

At Christmas dinner he sits with Logan Sparrow, a third year who's also the only one in his year to stay for the holidays. They only make small talk, mostly just using each other so they don't sit alone. It's better than sitting with Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle.

He doesn't find out about Hermione and Neville's Polyjuice plan until the next morning, when Neville's at breakfast alone. He goes over to ask about Hermione and can't help laughing when Neville tells him about Hermione accidentally giving herself cat ears and a tail.

"Why didn't you ask me for help?" he asks between giggles. "I could have snuck you in _and_ told you Malfoy's not the heir. He might wish he is but he's not."

"You were still in cuffs when we decided to do it."

"You could have at least told me about it. I can't believe you brewed a Polyjuice Potion in a bathroom and didn't include me. Is Pomfrey letting Hermione have visitors?"

"She let me in, but Hermione'll hex you if you go there and start laughing at her."

Harry sniggers. "Probably best if I don't visit then."

On the morning of the twenty-ninth, Snape accompanies Harry as they floo from the Hospital Wing to Saint Mungo's. Harry's got his backpack with pyjamas and a change of clothes in it, plus Kiwi, a couple of books, and his seizure diary. Kirith greets them and Snape leaves Harry with her to get taken to the room where he'll stay for the duration of the test.

The MRI is done by giving him a sour tasting potion to drink and casting a complex spell on his head before he lies on a flat bed that's pushed into a tube, inside of which several magical crystals spin at high speed around him, generating a magnetic field, while more crystals generate the radio waves that, Kirith tells him, bounce off parts of his brain and back to the crystal so that when they're put together the information can be withdrawn and projected onto special type of parchment in the form of an image. Harry doesn't entirely understand how it works, but he figures he doesn't really need to.

He's only in there for two nights and it's boring and anti-climatic. He expects it to make Kirith come to some defining conclusion that makes her definite about what potion Harry needs to take and make it possible for him to get a new eye. Instead all Kirith says is that it confirms the diagnosis of epilepsy, that she wants Harry to continue with the original anti-convulsion potion because she spoke to Healer Hopkins and it's likely his suppressed magic interfered with the potion, and that it's too risky to give Harry a magical eye at this point in time, but it may be possible in a few years. Harry's not happy.

* * *

In the first Charms class after Christmas, Harry realises that with his Wish Magic back, his spells are amplified. He's so glad to have his Wish Magic back that he hasn't touched his wand in the holidays so hasn't realised before. They're supposed to be learning how to control magical fires like they use in Potions, to change the temperature of the flames by single degrees, but Harry almost sets the entire classroom alight when he conjures his flame. The desk he and Jia are working at turns to ashes in the time it takes them to scramble away and for Flitwick to put it out. Their robes burn and Jia's hair singes, which puts her in a terrible mood and she refuses to talk to him for the rest of the day.

That evening he practices casting in the Room of Requirement, where he thinks it's probably safe for him to accidentally blow things up. All the spells he casts are twice as powerful as before; transfiguration is fine because it just means he's left with perfectly transformed objects, but Levitation Charms send tables rocketing towards the ceiling and the Lumos Spell is so bright he almost blinds himself and is still seeing white spots three hours later, when Tyler approaches him in the common room.

"Harry, can I ask you a favour?"

"What is it?"

"You know my friend Alex? He's struggling with spell work and you're really good, so I was wondering if you could maybe tutor him a little?"

Harry looks up from his book and frowns at Tyler. "You two made up?"

"Yeah, turns out the other Hufflepuffs convinced him that all Slytherins were slimy good-for-nothing snakes, but he's been pretty miserable all year and we made up over the holidays. The only thing is now the other 'puffs are treating him like dirt for being friends with a Slytherin, so he's still pretty miserable and he's not doing that well in classes, which doesn't help. I'm thinking of trying out that Bubble Mouth Hex Cid mentioned, teach the other 'puffs a lesson in manners. Anyway, do you think you could tutor him a bit? I'm not really a great teacher."

"I'm not sure that's a great idea right now," Harry says apologetically. "My spells are a bit... unpredictable at the minute. I'm not sure I should be teaching anyone until I can control my own magic. Why not ask Ed Coleman in Ravenclaw? He's pretty good."

"Yeah, alright, thanks anyway."

* * *

He finds the diary a week before February. He's on his way back down to Slytherin after practising in the Room of Requirement—he's getting better at not overdoing his spells now; he's discovered it's a case of working his Wish Magic with his wand magic to keep things under control—and passes through the corridor where Mrs Norris was attacked. The words are still written on the wall, despite Mr Filch's best efforts to scrub them off, and the floor is covered with water that's pouring out of Moaning Myrtle's bathroom.

Harry has mixed feelings about Moaning Myrtle. On the one hand, he feels bad for her because she's obviously lonely and miserable, which he can empathise with, but on the other hand she's _annoyingly_ miserable.

He checks there's no one else around before pushing open the door to the bathroom, entertaining a vague notion of trying to comfort the ghost, but Moaning Myrtle appears to be stuffed in her usual toilet, crying in great wailing sobs. Harry decides there's no point trying to comfort her, but he notices a little book on the floor under a sink and goes over, picking it up and shaking off the worst of the water, then leaves again. It's a diary from fifty years ago, with a shabby black cover and the name of a newsagent's on Vauxhall Road, London, printed on the back. It's blank, save for a faded name written on the first page—T. M. Riddle.

He scribbles out Riddle's name and writes his own underneath it. He might not be poor and homeless anymore, but he's still in the habit of taking what he finds if it's useful for him. To him, 'finders keepers' is a perfectly valid life motto and it's clear Riddle, whoever he is, isn't interested in writing in the diary—aside from his name, the entire thing is completely blank. But just as he goes to close it, he notices the ink soaking into the page, his name and the scribble over Riddle's fading away. He frowns, turning the page, but it hasn't soaked through, it's just gone. And then, seconds later, new words appear.

_Hello, Harry. I'm Tom Riddle. Might I ask how you came across my diary?_

The words shine wetly on the page for a moment before fading away just like his name. Not knowing what else to do, Harry writes back.

'I found it in a flooded bathroom.'

_It's good I preserved my memories in a more lasting way than ink._

'What do you mean?'

_My diary holds memories, memories of things that happened at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry._

'That's where I am now. What sort of things? Is it'

He hesitates, but figures there's no harm in telling a book about it.

'Is it about the Chamber of Secrets?'

_You know about that? Has it been opened again?_

'You mean it's been opened before?'

_Yes, once when I was at school. Several people were attacked and one student was killed. It was a terrible time. But tell me of yourself, Harry. How old are you? What house are you in?_

'I'm 12, in Slytherin. Do you know who opened the Chamber last time?'

_Would you help them? The heir of your house's founder?_

'NO. One of my best friends is Muggleborn and so was my mum. Just because I'm a Slytherin doesn't mean I hate Muggleborns.'

 _I apologise_ , Riddle writes quickly. _I did not mean to offend, merely discover the kind of person you are._

He closes the book without replying. He sticks it in his bedside cabinet and tells himself he won't write in it again, but something about it calls to him and merely two days later he's on his bed, curtains drawn as he writes.

'Do you mind if I rant to you?'

_About what?_

'I'm blind in one eye. When I was seven my Muggle uncle beat me up really badly and it damaged the optic nerve to my left eye. It also gave me epilepsy. This summer I found out about magical eyes and went to see a healer about getting one fitted, but because of my epilepsy they won't give me one. They say that creating a magical nervous system for the eye to work would be too risky with my seizures.'

_I'm sorry, Harry, that's awful. I hope you uncle was severely punished for what he did._

'No. He stabbed himself after doing it and told everyone that it was burglar who attacked both of us. I knew no one would believe me because my aunt and uncle always told everyone I was a liar.'

_What about your parents? Surely you told them._

'They're dead. They died when I was a baby. My aunt and uncle raised me until that happened, then I ran away and lived on the streets for a few years.'

_My sympathies for your parents; I lost mine as a baby too. With whom do you live now?_

'I spent half the summer with my aunt and uncle because the headmaster tricked me even after I told him what my uncle did, but I spent the rest with Professor Snape, who's the Slytherin head of house, while he helped me set up appointments with the healers for my epilepsy and everything. I stayed at Hogwarts for the Christmas holidays and I will for Easter too but I don't know what I'll do next summer.'

_The headmaster sent you to your uncle's despite knowing he almost killed you? That's dreadfully irresponsible of him._

'That's not even the worst thing he's done to me.'

_Oh?_

He hesitates, but really what harm is there in telling a book? As long as he keeps it locked away to stop anyone else writing in it, it's not like Riddle can tell anyone his secrets.

'I'm really powerful. After my uncle nearly killed me, I made a deal with a demon who made me really super powerful. I can do all kinds of magic without a wand or incantation. I call it Wish Magic because I just have to Wish for something to happen and it does. Dumbledore (that's the headmaster) doesn't like it and thinks I shouldn't have so much power so when he found out about it (just my power, I didn't tell him about the demon deal) he put these magic suppressing cuffs on me. That's how he tricked me into going to my uncle's. He only said he was taking me somewhere I could live for the summer but he put up these spells so I couldn't leave my uncle's house, and with the cuffs on I couldn't do Wish Magic to break out or anything. But it turns out that keeping my magic suppressed was killing me, which they didn't find out until just before Christmas when I had a seizure and fell into a coma. Apparently I stopped breathing twice and nearly died before they figured out what it was.'

_It sounds to me like Professor Dumbledore has no right being a teacher, let alone headmaster. Have you considered writing to the school governors? If they knew that he had almost killed a student and risked your safety by putting you with a Muggle who'd already tried to kill you..._

'I can't. I'd have to tell people about my power and they might find out who I am.'

_What do you mean?_

'I changed my name after I ran away. I don't use it anymore at all but when I was born, my parents named me Harry Potter. When I was a baby, there was this evil wizard called Voldemort and he tried to kill me. That's how my parents died, but when he tried to kill me it backfired on him and he was sort of destroyed but didn't die. I survived and no one knows how but now I'm famous. I don't want them all knowing who I am.'

It takes Tom a long time to reply to that.

_You're an incredible young man, Harry. You assured that when you dealt with the demon, but now this... it just shows how powerful you are, to have survived the Killing Curse when you were just a baby. Dumbledore may have only wanted to suppress your powers, but others would want to use it for their own purposes. You're right to keep hidden. You're destined for greatness, Harry._

He doubts that, but Tom's words make him smile anyway. It's nice to hear that someone thinks so much of him, even if it is just an old diary.


	14. Chapter 14

Harry's never concerned himself with Valentine's Day before. It's just a day like any other but which seems to get anyone older than about thirteen in a huff over love and chocolate and flowers. Harry personally thinks it's a load of rubbish and doesn't see what all the fuss is about. But walking into the Great Hall on the fourteenth of February that year, he comes to the conclusion that Valentine's Day was invented by and for crazy people.

"Happy Valentine's Day! And may I thank the forty-six people who have so far sent me cards! Yes, I have taken the liberty of arranging this little surprise for you all—and it doesn't end here! My friendly, card-carrying cupids! They will be roving around the school today delivering your valentines! I'm sure my colleagues will want to enter into the spirit of the occasion! Why not ask Professor Snape to show you how to whip up a Love Potion! And while you're at it, Professor Flitwick knows more about Entrancing Enchantments than any wizard I've ever met, the sly old dog!"

Harry gets that feeling that anyone who dares to ask Snape about love potions would find their next goblet of pumpkin juice spiked with a painful and slow-acting poison.

Although annoying, Harry sees the humour of the cupids. He laughs at Tyler's annoyance at getting three cards, two heart-shaped boxes of chocolate, and four roses, all before lunch. They're not all from girls either, but reading the name Sebastian Calais on one of the cards doesn't make him any less annoyed and he shoves it into his bag with a scowl.

"Do you think he's actually gay," Cid asks at lunch, looking across at where Sebastian sits at the Ravenclaw table, his back to them, "or just hasn't realised you're a boy?"

"Shut up," Tyler snaps, stabbing his salad with a fork. "God, I can't wait for my voice to break."

"If it bothers you that much, why don't you cut your hair? That might make you look more boyish."

"Because I look stupid with short hair."

Tabitha Sinclair, one of the Slytherin girls, isn't impressed when she opens a card and finds an animated picture of a realistic human heart inside. She pulls a face as she reads it at lunch then throws it down the table at Cid.

"You're gross," she tells him.

"Aww, c'mon. It's better than that sappy shit all the others have."

"Whatever. No one will ever be your girlfriend, loser."

She leaves with Jia and the other two girls, shooting filthy looks at Cid as they pass.

"Not like I want a girlfriend anyway," Cid mutters, but Harry thinks he looks disappointed.

Tyler gets his own back on Harry when a cupid tracks them down on the way to Transfiguration that afternoon and hands Harry a bright pink envelope with a card inside. Tyler and Cid peer over his shoulders as he opens it, face red, and reads the short poem inside. It's signed from a secret admirer, but Harry recognises the handwriting. He's seen it enough times as Jia jots down notes next to him. When they get to Transfiguration, he convinces Cid to swap seats with him so he doesn't have to sit next to her, and he leaves as soon as the class is over, rushing out before she can try talking to him. When he sees Hermione in the corridors afterwards, he instantly rushes over.

"Hermione! I need help."

"With what? Is everything alright?"

He drags her into an empty classroom, shutting the door and turning to her with a pleading expression. "I got a Valentine's card from Jia."

"Oh. Um... that's sweet."

"But what am I supposed to _do_?"

"Is it definitely from her?"

"She didn't sign it but I recognise her handwriting. Hermione, what if she wants to... to be my girlfriend or something?"

Hermione looks amused. Harry finds the situation far from funny.

"Is that why you came to me? Because I'm a girl so I should know what you need to do?"

"Well... yeah. C'mon, Hermione, you're smart. You must have some advice."

"So are you, so figure it out yourself."

He goes to Neville instead, but he's even less useful.

"I've never had a Valentine's card. I don't know anything about... that stuff."

He doesn't tell Cid or Tyler that he knows who the card is from; he doesn't need Cid's relentless mocking as he's done with Tyler all day. After dinner, he shuts himself in the dorm and seeks help from the only other person he think he can ask—the diary.

'Tom, do you know about girls?'

He realises how stupid that sounds as soon as he's written it, but by then it's too late and the words are already sinking into the page.

_I assume by that you mean do I know how to interact with them in a romantic capacity, rather than do I know they exist and are biologically different to boys._

Harry's glad a book can't tell he's blushing. 'Yeah. It's Valentine's Day and my friend Jia sent me a card and I don't know what I'm supposed to do about it.'

_Perhaps say thank you?_

'But what if she wants to be my girlfriend?'

_Would you like her to be?_

'No. I like her as a friend but I don't want a girlfriend or anything.'

_Then tell her that._

Riddle makes it sound so easy and Harry grumpily closes the diary. It's alright for him; he's a book. It's not like there are any girl-books out there sending him Valentine's poems.

He manages to avoid seeing Jia until the next morning but she's already in the common room the next day when he goes out to head up to the Hospital Wing. She greets him like everything's normal and they head out together. Harry's tense, head racing as he figures out whether he's supposed to say anything about the card or not. She doesn't say anything, just walks alongside him like it's any other day, and he decides he won't say anything unless she does.

* * *

Slytherin's next Quidditch match is on the nineteenth and against Ravenclaw. They beat them narrowly, but it doesn't make up for their loss against Gryffindor, who won in their January match against Hufflepuff. It takes Slytherin out of the running for the Quidditch cup, leaving it to depend on the last match between Gryffindor and Ravenclaw. Afterwards, Harry talks to Riddle.

'Did you ever play Quidditch?'

_No, I preferred books to sports._

'I like books too but I love flying and I really want to be able to play Quidditch.'

_So why don't you?_

'I can't. It's too dangerous with my seizures, and I can't really catch balls and stuff when I'm half blind. I hate my uncle for doing this to me. Sometimes'

_Sometimes what?_

'Sometimes I think maybe the purebloods are right and Muggles are bad.'

It's not something he's ever really admitted, even to himself, but writing it now he knows it's true.

'I don't hate Muggleborns,' he adds quickly, 'but my aunt and uncle and cousin were all horrible and when I was on the streets there were Muggles who did bad things and sometimes I think maybe it's true that wizards are better. Does that make me a bad person?'

_No, Harry, you're not a bad person. It's perfectly understandable that you'd feel this way after everything you've been through._

'But it's not like there aren't bad wizards. Just look at Voldemort. Even Dumbledore.'

 _Of course there are bad wizards as well, but hating the people who hurt you doesn't make_ _you_ _a bad person. Distrust of Muggles isn't a terrible thing, Harry. You've studied our history, you've read about what they do to magical people._

'But that was centuries ago. People are better now. They've evolved.'

_Is your uncle amongst those who evolved?_

He closes the diary then, not because he disagrees, but because he doesn't and that bothers him.

He doesn't tell anyone about the diary. He wants to keep it to himself, not to mention Cid and Tyler would mock him endlessly for keeping a diary. But as the days go on he keeps writing in it, discussing the issue of Muggles and wizards or simply talking about his days.

* * *

When he comes to in the Easter holidays to find himself standing in the middle of the empty dorm room, he doesn't think much of it and just assumes he's had a focal seizure.

* * *

Gryffindor have their last match against Ravenclaw on the eighth of May. Harry misses it. He's not sure why and can only assume he's had a seizure. It'd explain why he finds himself in the Slytherin common room feeling disorientated. He's alone but just barely come to when the entrance opens behind him and the rest of the house comes pouring in. Jia comes up to him, her face scared.

"There's been another one."

"Another what?" he asks, but there's a sinking feeling in his stomach.

"Another attack."

Penelope Clearwater is dead. She was killed near the library just that morning. Strict new rules are instituted. They're not allowed to go anywhere unsupervised, all extracurricular activities are cancelled, and every single student has to be in their house common room by six o'clock. There are rumours that the school will close. Harry talks to Riddle.

'There was another attack today, the first one in months. A Ravenclaw sixth year was killed.'

_That's horrible. Are you alright?_

'I don't know. I don't remember anything from this morning.'

_Did you sleep in?_

'No. I don't think so. I can't remember.'

_Harry, what's wrong? Tell me what you're thinking._

'I don't know. I just

'I don't feel right. I can't explain it.'

* * *

That evening, Ginny Weasley sits down by Fred and George and tells them about a diary she had in the first term, a diary that used to belong to Tom M. Riddle. She tells them that she used to write in that diary and it wrote back. She tells them about the black spots in her memory, black spots that time up exactly with the dates of the first attacks.

She nervously stands behind her brothers as they repeat the story to Percy, who takes all three of them to McGonagall's office. Percy tries to insist that only Ginny comes, but the youngest Weasley refuses to go without the twins.

When McGonagall hears the story, she swears she ages five years in five minutes. She sends the boys back to Gryffindor and escorts Ginny to Dumbledore's office, where Ginny tearfully repeats the story all over again.

Dumbledore sends McGonagall to take Ginny back to Gryffindor. He considers the girl's story, the diary with a mind of its own, the diary that belonged to the darkest wizard Britain had ever seen. He isn't foolish enough to believe the diary was lost when it was flushed away, but he has no way of knowing who might have it now. He knows only that it must be somewhere in the castle, a prospect that both scares and relieves him. He hates having his students in such danger, despises the thought that one of his students is subject to the mind of Tom Riddle, but he knows about it now and knows that it's within his reach. If it's in the castle, he can find it.

* * *

Hagrid is arrested and afterwards everyone says it should have been obvious given his fondness for monsters. But Dumbledore leaves as well, told by the school governors to step down. They don't think he's suited to the position anymore. McGonagall takes his place.

The notices appear on Monday morning. Harry sees it as he's leaving for the Hospital Wing that morning, pinned to the noticeboard by the common room entrance.

LOST DIARY LABELLED

**T. M. RIDDLE**

IF FOUND, PLEASE RETURN TO

PROFESSOR MCGONAGALL

IMMEDIATELY

His breath catches and he has to run back to the dorm and grab the diary from his bedside cabinet. He starts to shove it in his bag then stops, suddenly thinking that the teachers might search their bags if they're that desperate to find it. He sticks it in his trunk instead, locking it and then pressing his hand to the lid and Wishing don't open for anyone but me just to be extra secure.

He hardly eats breakfast. Why are they looking for the diary? Do they teachers know that it's not a normal diary? Is it a coincidence that it's being asked for just days after the latest attack? Whoever owned the diary before must have known it's been missing since January; why are they only asking for news about it now?

He goes back to Slytherin after breakfast and takes it out of his trunk again. He doesn't feel secure leaving it in the dorm unattended so he shoves it to the bottom of his bag, Wishing it invisible and hoping that the teachers aren't so desperate to find the diary that they're going to start searching their bags.

'Why do they want you?' he asks Riddle during morning break, hiding in a broom cupboard to scribble frantically.

_The person who owned me before you told me secrets, secrets that would ruin them if they ever got out._

'What secrets?'

_If I told you theirs, you wouldn't trust me to keep yours. Just don't tell anyone about me, Harry, and everything will be fine._

The teachers announce that exams will still be taken despite Penelope's death, which makes more than a few people groan and complain.

"How can they expect us to take fucking exams at a time like this?" Cid grumbles. "I mean someone fucking _died_. We're traumatised. We can't take exams."

"You didn't even know her," Tyler points out. "She was just some sixth year Ravenclaw."

Harry slams his history book shut, gets to his feet and storms from the common room. Cid and Tyler look after him, baffled.

"The fuck was that about?"

* * *

'It shouldn't even bother me this much,' Harry tells Tom. 'Tyler's right. Penelope was just some sixth year Ravenclaw, I didn't even know what she looked like until I saw the photos people put on the little memorial set up by the library with candles and pictures and teddies. I never even knew her name before she died.'

_It's empathy, Harry. It's perfectly natural to feel like this when someone's died._

'It just doesn't feel right. I mean I know someone being killed isn't right but'

_But?_

'I don't know. This is frustrating I don't know how to explain myself. There's just something that feels really wrong.'

Three days before the exams are due to start, McGonagall announces that the mandrakes are matured. Potion classes are cancelled so Snape can focus on making the restorative potion. Harry's relieved to hear it. He just wants this entire mess to be over.

* * *

_Don't worry, Harry. Soon it'll all be over. You won't have to worry about monsters or heirs or anything. Everything's going to be fine. You can trust me, Harry._

* * *

Filch finds the message, scrawled in blood right below the first.

_HIS SKELETON WILL LIE IN THE CHAMBER FOREVER._

Snape's face turns so white when he hears the news that McGonagall thinks the man who can stand up to Lord Voldemort without batting an eyelash might now actually faint.

"Severus, are you alright?"

"He's my son."

Snape's voice is hollow. McGonagall's never heard him sound so hopelessly lost.

"Who's your son?"

"Evans. Harry. He's my son. Minerva, if he dies—"

He breaks off, unable to continue. McGonagall has no idea what to say to him.

* * *

Riddle bends over the semi-conscious body on the floor of the Chamber. Harry Evans is a small boy, physically unassuming and unthreatening. Both his green eyes are dull now, fading with every minute that Riddle drains the life from him. And what a life it is! The boy is a powerhouse, stronger than anything Riddle's felt before, no doubt because of the demon deal. But Riddle can't help feel disappointed in his older self. How could he, the most powerful sorcerer in the world, have been taken down by this mere child who hadn't even had power when Voldemort tried to kill him?

* * *

Lockhart packs everything, leaves his resignation on his desk, and flees the castle without a word to anyone.

* * *

Dumbledore floos straight into McGonagall's office, surprising the Transfiguration professor, who's taking five minutes to sit in quiet and try not to cry about the disaster that's befallen the school.

"Albus!"

"The students, they're still here?"

McGonagall nods.

"Fetch Ginny Weasley."

"What? Albus—"

"Minerva, please. We don't have time for questions. Fetch Miss Weasley immediately!"

Ten minutes later, Ginny sits nervously between her parents, Professor Dumbledore in front of her, McGonagall off to one side, and Snape behind them.

"Now, Ginny, I need you to look into my eyes and think about Hallowe'en night."

She inhales shakily and does so, clutching her mother's hand. Dumbledore's already explained everything, how they think her memories of that night are there, just buried. Dumbledore knows a spell, _Legilimency_ , that'll let him access her memories, including, he hopes, the ones she can't recall.

She's hardly aware of his presence inside her head. There's a slight tickle along her hairline, but she's not sure if that's because of the spell or just her own imagination. For several long minutes, Dumbledore merely stares at her. She has a strong urge to break eye contact and duck her head, but she knows this is the only way they can find out where the Chamber of Secrets is and save Harry Evans.

She lets out a breath when Dumbledore finally blinks and looks away. He looks up at his fellow teachers and nods then looks at her parents.

"Mr and Mrs Weasley, please remain here with Ginny until someone comes for you."

"Did you find it?" her dad asks.

"Yes," Dumbledore says quietly, and leads Snape and McGonagall out.

* * *

Myrtle dive bombs into her toilet with a shriek when the three professors simultaneously blast the sink with Reductor Curses. They blow off two sinks and the resulting shockwave breaks every mirror in the room.

The three move slowly through the tunnel, bones crunching under foot. They find the huge snake-skin and Snape crouches by it, inspecting it closely. McGonagall has a hand over her mouth, eyes wide as she shines her Lumos-lit wand over the scaly skin.

"Albus, only one snake could get this big," Snape murmurs, rising from his inspection.

Dumbledore nods, glancing between his two colleagues. "Be careful."

The snake-carved door slows them down, but doesn't stop them. It takes four hits of their combined Reductor Curses, but they finally break through. They're greeted by the loud hiss of an angry snake and only McGonagall's quick wandwork gets Snape out of the way of the lunging fangs.

The fight is hard and dirty. McGonagall hasn't been so physically strained in a long time, and somewhere in the back of her mind she bemoans her aging body. Her magic is as strong as ever, though.

Dumbledore takes out the serpent's eyes with two well-placed Stabbing Spells. Furious and hurt, the basilisk lunges at them wildly. At the other end of the long hall, Riddle hisses orders at the snake in between shouted taunts.

"You'll never win, Dumbledore! This is my victory!"

Snape's scream echoes through the chamber, matched by a pained noise from the basilisk. Across the hall, McGonagall sees him fall, the white fang standing out starkly against his black robes. She shouts a wordless cry of anger and thrusts her wand towards the basilisk.

" _DECOLLO!_ " she screams. The curse, designed to behead a victim, merely slashes deeply into the serpent's throat. It's enough. Dumbledore bellows his own curse at the choking snake, cleanly separating its head from its body. Both pieces fall to the floor with a heavy thud.

"FAWKES!"

The bird appears in a burst of flames at his owner's bellow. He swoops down to land beside Snape, claws clicking on the stone floor as he hops closer. He gives one haunting cry then lowers his head, tears dripping over his fiery face to fall onto the bloody wound.

It's not over yet.

"The diary!" Dumbledore yells to McGonagall. He flicks his wand, shooting a Throwing Hex at the solidifying figure of Tom Riddle. Riddle tries to dodge, but the hex catches his arm and knocks him off his feet. McGonagall summons the small book by Harry's unconscious body and plucks it out of the air. Riddle aims Harry's wand at her and Dumbledore flings a curse at him. Riddle blocks, but he's distracted.

McGonagall hits the diary with _destruo_ , a spell that should disintegrate any inanimate object, but it rebounds harmlessly off the little book. She tries _reducto_ , then several increasingly powerful hexes designed to destroy items, all to no effect. Even conjured fire fails to so much as char the edges.

Riddle knows he won't win this. He can't defeat Dumbledore, and McGonagall will figure out how to destroy the diary. His snake is dead and he'll never get past the three teachers to escape.

He dodges a curse and glances at the boy on the floor. He might be defeated, but that doesn't mean he has to _lose_.

It's Snape, skittering along the floor, one arm soaked in blood, who plunges the basilisk fang into the little book.

Riddle vanishes, his wand clattering to the floor. No one notices the tiny, smug grin on his face before he disappears, or the pained exhale Harry gives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Decollo" and "Destruo" are from 'A Guide to Spell, Hexes, and Curses' by Terion (FFN User ID: 74156).


	15. Chapter 15

The first thing Harry's aware of is cold, damp stone under his back. The last thing he remembers is seeing the blurry image of Tom Riddle manifesting in front of him. Now he's flat on his back, with the familiar weak feeling of a seizure along his right side, and there are voices nearby.

"Harry?"

He opens his eyes and looks up to see Professor Snape crouched beside him, McGonagall and Dumbledore standing just behind him.

"I didn't mean to," he blurts out. "He made me do it. I didn't want to, I swear. I couldn't—"

"Evans," Snape interrupts, "be quiet. Can you stand?"

He sits up, nodding, but doesn't pull away when Snape wraps a hand around his arm and helps him up.

"Sir, your arm—holy crap." He's just noticed the dead basilisk. "What happened?"

"I think that's a story best left until we're somewhere brighter, warmer, and all around safer," Dumbledore answers. The leave the chamber and head back towards the tunnel leading up to Myrtle's bathroom. Harry peers into it.

"So we're flying out?"

"We are. Fawkes."

"Fawkes?" Harry repeats blankly, then looks at the phoenix that's with them. "The _bird's_ getting us out?"

"Phoenixes can carry vast amounts of weight," Dumbledore tells him, wrapping one hand around Fawkes' tail feathers and then holding out his other to McGonagall. "How else did you expect to get out?"

"Like I said," Harry replies, lifting himself off the ground, "flying."

"That's all very well and good for you," Snape drawls, wrapping his hand around McGonagall's arm. "The rest of us are not so skilled."

"I can make other people fly too. Are you sure that bird can carry you all?"

As if to prove himself, Fawkes flaps his wings and starts up the tunnel, easily lifting the three teachers after him. Impressed, Harry follows.

Back in Myrtle's bathroom, they turn to inspect the damage to the wall. Dumbledore raises his wand but Snape puts an arm out to stop him. "I want to get back down there at some point."

McGonagall gapes at him. "Why on earth would you want to go down there again?"

"Minerva, do you have any idea how rare basilisk venom and scales are? That snake is big enough to stock my inventory for life. Not to mention I now have blood with both basilisk venom _and_ phoenix tears in it. The possibilities that are open to me—"

"Very well," Dumbledore interrupts, eyes twinkling. "We'll leave it open for now and cordon off the bathroom for the rest of term. It'll have to be repaired by the start of September, however."

"Thank you, Albus."

"Right now we need to worry about the rest of the school."

"There's no need to send the students home now, is there?" McGonagall says. "The heir and his monster are defeated."

"I quite agree. Minerva, if you could inform the rest of the staff, then tell the students. I will accompany Severus and young Mr Evans to the Hospital Wing."

Harry thinks he spends entirely too much time in the Hospital Wing and he'd be quite glad to never set foot there again, but he trudges along beside Snape and Dumbledore and is glad when Dumbledore tells Pomfrey that they're fine to wait and she should continue administering the Mandrake Juice to the petrified victims.

"Am I going to be expelled?" Harry asks when he's finished telling them about finding the diary and writing in it for half the year.

"Not at all," Dumbledore assures him. "There will be no punishment. Older and wiser men than you have been hoodwinked by Lord Voldemort."

"Even though I... I killed Penelope Clearwater?"

"You did not kill Miss Clearwater," Snape says firmly. "The basilisk did and it was Riddle controlling you and it. You are no more to blame for her death than anyone else in this castle."

Harry's not sure he really believes that.

He begs to be let out of the Hospital Wing to go to the feast that night. When he gets to the Great Hall, Hermione greets him with a hug and a demand to know what happened. He promises he'll tell her and Neville everything later and heads over to the Slytherin table, where Jia surprises him with a hug as well, though she's a little more awkward about it than Hermione.

* * *

Dumbledore's barely back to his office when Lucius Malfoy comes storming in, furious and demanding to know where Dumbledore gets the nerve to come back to the school from which he's been suspended. Lucius leaves with less confidence than he came in with, but he still calls on the rest of the school governors, determined to do something.

An hour later, he returns to his manor in a foul mood. He kicks Dobby so hard the little elf flies all the way down the hall and smashes into the wall at the end with a crack and a wail of pain. Lucius snarls. The other governors had some nerve, asking him to 'step down' because 'we no longer feel you're suited to the position'.

He storms to the cellar, throwing the door open so hard it smacks against the wall. Inside he moves through to the back, draws his wand and cuts his palm then smears blood to an unremarkable section of wall and a hidden door swings open. The room inside is cold and dark. He waves his wand and a torch on the wall flares to life, then he closes the wound on his hand with a murmured spell.

There's a man in the room, crumpled on a mattress to one side, a blanket pulled around him. A bucket sits in the far corner, charmed to remain odourless despite the urine and faeces inside, and an empty plate and glass sit on the floor at the man's head. He sits up when Lucius enters but he doesn't get chance to speak. When Lucius points a wand at him and snarls " _Crucio!_ " the man screams with a voice that's hoarse.

* * *

Snape's not surprised when McGonagall knocks on his door at nine o'clock the next morning, her face set into an expression that says she doesn't care how little sleep he's had, they're having their conversation and they're having it now.

"Does he know?"

"No. No one does except you and me."

"Not even Albus?"

Snape laughs dryly. "The last thing I need is the old man meddling in things."

"Do you plan to tell the boy?"

"No, and I swear, Minerva, I will Obliviate you both if you tell him."

"Now really!"

"I mean it. I'm not father material and he doesn't need to know about me. I only told you because..."

"You were scared."

He scowls but doesn't argue with her.

"I don't know why you think you're not father material. You looked after him half the summer."

"I gave him a bedroom and escorted him to the hospital several times. We spent almost as much time there as at my house."

"I know _that's_ an exaggeration, and beside the point. You've always handled the Slytherin students just fine and he seems to like you well enough."

"I'm not telling him."

"Did Lily know?"

Snape gives her a withering glare. "Do you really have to ask that?"

"No, I suppose not. How did it happen? You know what I mean," she snaps when his glare turns to an amused raise of the eyebrows.

"An affair, if you could call it that. It was only one night."

"Long enough for an accident to happen."

Snape snorts and doesn't answer.

"Did James know?"

The mere mention of his name is enough to put a scowl on Snape's face, but he answers her. "I don't know. Lily and I agreed I would have nothing to do with boy; I don't know what she told Potter or any of their friends." He pauses, considering her. "I'm surprised you haven't asked if I'm sure he's mine."

"After spending the night thinking about it, I don't doubt it. He's got enough of Lily in him that at first you don't notice that he doesn't really look like James, save for the dark hair. But being told that he's yours, I can see it now, especially down in the Chamber last night. If you don't want anyone to know, you might want to avoid being seen side-by-side with him."

* * *

Harry surprises McGonagall when he turns up at her office that afternoon.

"I just want to thank you for saving me," he tells her sincerely. "I said it to Dum- Professors Dumbledore and Snape last night but didn't get a chance to say it to you, so thank you."

A week later, Harry gets called to Snape's office.

"I will be remaining at the castle for the duration of the summer holidays. Professor Dumbledore has given his permission for you to remain here with me, if you so wish, under certain conditions."

"Yes," Harry agrees immediately, then asks, "What conditions?"

"You will have to share my living quarters rather than remain in Slytherin house. You will not tell anyone else that you are staying here. You will tell your friends that you won't be taking the train back to London due to a hospital appointment to which you will be flooing straight from the castle."

"Where am I supposed to tell them to send letters?"

"Tell them you will be travelling for the holidays and will be unreachable until the new year begins."

Harry nods, a little disappointed that he wouldn't be able to keep in contact with his friends, but pleased that he's got somewhere definite to stay for the next two months. Previously he had only vague plans to go to Gringotts as soon as he reached London, convert some Galleons to pounds, and stay in a Muggle hotel for the holidays. He wouldn't stay at the Leaky Cauldron or any other wizarding establishment; it'd be too easy for Dumbledore to find him.

Snape and Harry aren't the only one's staying in the castle for the holidays. McGonagall's there as well and so is Dumbledore, and Snape mentions the rest of the staff will start trickling back after mid-August.

The house elves manipulate the castle into building an entirely new bedroom in Snape's quarters, which Harry thinks is dreadfully impressive. It's a respectable size, with a good bed and a desk for him to work at.

"Why don't you live here all the time?" Harry asks Snape on the first night there.

"Why would I?"

"Well, this sitting room's bigger than the entire ground floor of your house. Plus you've got your lab and the house elves to make food for you. I'd live here all the time if I could."

"Believe it or not, some of us appreciate a change of scenery sometimes."

"That's what holidays are for."

"And a teacher's salary only stretches so far."

The very next day, Snape goes down to the Chamber of Secrets and Harry begs to go down with him.

"Why?"

"I didn't really get to see it last time, and it's not dangerous anymore."

"Just because the basilisk is dead and Riddle gone does not mean it is safe."

"It's safe enough for you and I can look after myself. Please, sir. I can help you collect the venom and scales and stuff."

Snape relents under the condition Harry stay within his sight at all times and do exactly as he's told. His 'helping' to harvest the dead basilisk consists of holding the vials and jars for Snape to put things in, which isn't exactly fun, but it's a novel way to spend his morning so he doesn't complain too much.

He has all his holiday homework finished within a week. He's forbidden from entering Snape's lab except in case of emergency or with Snape's express permission, which doesn't happen much. He spends a lot of time exploring the castle, finding secret passageways and short cuts that he hasn't before.

"Evans, if you don't stop tapping your fingers I will stick them together," Snape threatens one evening when Harry's bored.

"Sorry."

"Don't you have homework to do?"

"Finished it."

"Then read a book."

"I don't know what."

"Perhaps you should research tourist locations so you've got something to tell your friends when they ask what you've been doing all summer."

"I guess that's probably a good idea."

Researching places to visit isn't that interesting though. Halfway through July, on a particularly boring day, he invents a new game which involves jumping off a moving staircase and onto a lower one, using his magic only to stop himself getting killed. He's forbidden from doing wand magic, but his Wish Magic goes undetected by the Ministry Trace. For extra thrills, he aims for staircases with trick steps on them. This keeps him entertained for several hours until McGonagall sees him leap off a staircase and shrieks loud enough to make several portraits slap their hands over their ears and causes Harry to lose his concentration. He hurtles downwards for two terrifying seconds before catching himself again.

McGonagall makes him clean all the desks in her classroom without magic as punishment and sets him five hundred lines about not doing stupid and life threatening activities.

He can't fly much because Snape won't fly with him, but he does agree to sit in the stands on the Quidditch pitch and keep watch as Harry borrows a school broom and flies. He's under orders to keep it slow, which Harry thinks won't be a problem on the school's ancient Shooting Star.

"MR EVANS, GET DOWN HERE AT ONCE!"

Harry spins to a halt in what's supposed to be a very cool 180-degree turn and stop, but which the Shooting Star turns into a 872-degree spin. He turns again and looks down at Professor McGonagall, stood on the ground with a furious look on her face.

"Minerva, he's fine," Snape calls from the stands. McGonagall looks over at him, lips still pursed, and Snape gestures for Harry to carry on as the Transfiguration professor heads for the steps, climbing up to join Snape.

"It's a shame he can't play Quidditch. He's a very good flier."

"He'd certainly put the Gryffindor team to shame."

McGonagall scoffs. "My team is excellent and I fully expect Gryffindor to take the Quidditch Cup next summer. We'd have had it this year if it hadn't been for the attacks."

"If you win it would deprive Oliver Wood of the opportunity to drown himself in despair."

"He is quite obsessed, isn't he?"

"Still, if you do win—and that's a big if—he might die of joy."

"Now really, Severus," McGonagall scolds, but there's amusement in her eyes.

* * *

He knows he shouldn't be in there, but he's bored one Sunday a week before his birthday and Snape's shut in his lab. He just wants to check out the books, anyway. He knows Snape keeps all the really interesting ones in his room. So he keeps his ears open for the sound of Snape coming back and sneaks inside. He's not surprised to find that Snape's room is dark and uninviting. The bed's neatly made but there are no photos or ornaments or any kind of personal effects. He's got a plain, dark wood wardrobe and two bookshelves the same colour. Harry goes to them, inspecting titles, levitating himself up to read the ones on the top shelves.

It falls out of a Herbology text. He's trying to get out a thin book with no title on the spine and has to pull the Herbology book out to get to it. As he does, a bit of paper falls from the pages. He curses, lowers himself to pick it up, hoping Snape won't notice if he puts it back in the wrong place, but forgets about that when he picks the paper up and instead of seeing Snape's spidery scrawl or even printed text, he sees large, childish handwriting that reads at the top of the page, _Dear Father Christmas_.

* * *

Harry's walking out of Snape's bedroom when Snape returns from his lab. Snape's angry scolding dies on his tongue as Harry lift his head and looks at Snape with an expression of hateful accusation. He's got a piece of paper clutched in shaking hands and even from the door Snape can see the childish scrawl.

"It was you," he says in the quietly dangerous voice that took Snape years of teaching to perfect.

"You're not allowed in there."

Snape knows it's the wrong thing to say even as he says it, but his brain's floundering because Harry was never meant to know and Snape's never figured out what to say if he ever found out.

And that's all he manages to think before he's thrown backward, feet leaving the floor as an invisible force slams into him. He hits the door behind him, the wind knocked from his lungs milliseconds before he head smacks against stones and then everything goes black.

* * *

McGonagall's relaxing with a cup of tea and a copy of _Witch Weekly_ (it's a guilty pleasure and sometimes the trashy articles are amusing) when a near-hysterical house elf pops into her quarters jabbering something about Snape being dead.

She rushes through the castle to find the door to Snape's quarters pushed open. Snape's on the floor just inside, groaning as he comes to, the hair on the back of his head matted with blood. She hurries to his side and helps him sit up.

"What on earth happened?"

"I don't know," he says, wincing as she gingerly touches the back of his head. "The last thing I remember is leaving my lab."

She calls an emergency response healer, who fixes the back of his head but says he's got a concussion and needs keeping an eye on for a couple of days. While he's being seen, McGonagall checks the rest of the quarters for Harry. She doesn't find him, but she does find the letter to Father Christmas. She doesn't say anything about it until the healer leaves and Snape settles on his sofa, then she holds it out.

"Would you care to explain this?"

He does so, quietly and not meeting her eyes.

"You were right, Severus," she says when he finishes.

"About?"

"You're not father material."

McGonagall calls Dumbledore to sit with Snape. Snape takes a glowing emerald pendant from around his neck and tells them it's connected to a tracking charm he put on Harry's medical bracelet. Dumbledore points out that if Harry's invisible, it will do them no good, but Snape tells them that if Harry were hidden, the pendant wouldn't glow. McGonagall takes it, too angry at Snape to stay with him and knowing Harry will probably react to her best right now.

When the emerald takes her all the way to the end of Hogsmeade and continues to point south, she realises that Harry's run a lot farther than they expected. She goes back to the castle to tell Snape and Dumbledore, fetch a cloak and a broom, and begins flying south, a knot in her stomach as she thinks of all the terrible things that could happen to the boy in the time it takes her to find him.

Four hours later she reaches the Scotland-England border, night is well on its way, and the emerald still points south. She lands, stretches her legs and takes a moment to think about how she's too old to spend four hours on a broomstick, and then, working on a hunch, she Apparates to the Leaky Cauldron.

Her hunch is right. The emerald points east and she leaves her broom with Tom the barman and exits into Muggle London.

Just over an hour later she finds Harry in the living room of a decrepit house with a dozen other children, all sat around a fire and talking cheerfully. They fall silent when she enters and she sees several of them reach for weapons.

"I didn't mean to kill him," Harry blurts out, and the other children look at him in surprise.

"Kill who?" asks a girl of about fifteen.

"He's not dead," McGonagall says, and Harry slumps in relief.

"She ya ma?"

"She's a teacher at my school," Harry tells the girl. "But I'm probably expelled now."

"You're not. Professor Dumbledore and I know why you attacked Snape; you won't be expelled. Now come along."

"I don't want to go back."

"Don't be ridiculous, you cannot stay here."

The oldest of the group, a girl of maybe eighteen, gets to her feet. She's holds a metal pipe in one hand but doesn't raise it.

"If 'e don't wanna go back, 'e don't hafta, lady."

"That's none of your concern. Mr Evans, come along. It's dark and unsafe."

"Oi! We know 'ow to look after ourselves. Now get lost, lady. We ain't lettin' ya take 'im if 'e don't wanna go."

There are nods and murmurs of agreement from the other children and more of them get to their feet. McGonagall sighs irritably.

"Mr Evans, will you at least accompany me to the Leaky Cauldron so we can discuss this?"

Harry agrees to that, assuring the other kids that he'll be fine. They let him go but suspicious eyes follow McGonagall out the house and up the street.

"Are you alright?" she asks Harry, who nods, not looking at her.

"He told you why I attacked him?"

"I saw the letter. How old where you when you wrote that?"

Harry shrugs. "Five maybe."

McGonagall's lips purse and she gestures to an alley. "Come down here. I'll Apparate you back to the Leaky Cauldron."

"I mean it that I don't want to go back," he says warningly.

"Let's just get you some dinner and have a talk."


	16. Chapter 16

At the Leaky Cauldron McGonagall orders them some dinner and uses the fireplace to call Hogwarts to let them know she's found Harry and he's safe.

"How did you manage to get all the way down here?" she asks Harry when Tom's brought their food over, and Harry gets a guilty expression on his face. "Did you use the floo?"

"I can Apparate," he admits.

"You're twelve years old; how can you possible Apparate?"

"The same why I can turn invisible."

"Of course," she says, because what else can she say? "And how long have you known how to Apparate?"

"Since February last year. How did you find me?"

"Professor Snape put a tracking charm on your bracelet," she tells him and he scowls.

"He's got no right to do that."

"It's a good job he did or we would have spent a lot longer looking for you. We're lucky you didn't choose to turn invisible today; Professor Dumbledore tells me you'd be impossible to find if you were."

He nods in agreement. "I was at first, but I saw one of those girls back there getting attacked by a man so I helped her, and that's why they let me join them."

"That was very good of you." She pauses, clears her throat, then says, "Mr Evans... Harry, what Severus did—"

"I hope he gets eaten by a manticore," he says, viciously stabbing a potato.

"Harry—"

"I mean it. I hate him. Him and Dumbledore. Why is it always the men?" he asks bitterly. "Them, my uncle, even Voldemort. Am I going to end up like them one day? A stupid, horrible person that does bad things just because I've got a—" he breaks off, cheeks going red as he remembers exactly who he's talking to.

"No," McGonagall says with the calm composure of a teacher who's spent decades dealing with vulgar, crude, and awkward teenagers. "There are plenty of unpleasant women out there too, and plenty of good men. If you wish, you can move into my quarters for the rest of the holidays."

Harry shakes his head. "I'm not going back. I don't want to see him."

"You'll have to when the new term starts."

"That's not for over a month, plus that'll only be in classes and stuff."

"And where did you plan to stay for that month if not at the school? With those other children?"

He shrugs. "Maybe. Before school ended I thought about living in a hotel. Or maybe travelling around like everyone thinks I am."

"Alone?"

"I can look after myself, professor. I did it for years."

"That doesn't mean you should. You will have to talk to him eventually."

"In class."

"No, you will have to discuss what happened."

"Why?" he asks angrily. "He left me there when he knew what my uncle was doing. He just brought presents like that made everything okay. If he'd actually done something Uncle Vernon never would have nearly killed me and made me have these stupid seizures and everything else that's wrong with me."

McGonagall's fork clatters against her plate. " _He_ did that?"

"Dumbledore didn't tell you?"

" _Dumbledore_ knew? Since when?"

"I told him last summer, after the thing with Quirrell."

"And he still sent you back there?!"

Some fifteen minutes later, McGonagall returns to the castle and finds Dumbledore's still in Snape's quarters. The headmaster's about to ask where Harry is but McGonagall gives him such a furious look that he shuts his mouth, deciding not to speak.

Snape's not so smart. "Where is he?"

"Harry will be spending the rest of the summer at the Leaky Cauldron. I've come to collect his things for him."

"Minerva—"

"Severus Snape, if you say one more word I will glue your tongue to the roof of your mouth!"

Snape snaps his mouth shut.

"Neither of you have any right to decide where he stays for the rest of the holidays. You're lucky I convinced him to spend the time at the Cauldron instead of living on the street with a bunch of homeless children! Lily and James would be rolling in their graves if they could see the way you've treated him."

* * *

Harry books into the Leaky Cauldron's best room. McGonagall tells him she'll come and check up on him every Sunday and that he should stay in the Leaky Cauldron and Diagon Alley. He says he will, but the next morning he goes to Gringotts and changes some of his Galleons to pounds, Disapparates from the Leaky Cauldron, and reappears in the Lake District. It's the first place he looks up when he takes Snape's suggestion about researching places to tell people he visited and he immediately decides he wants to visit for real one day. He spends the day walking along Lake Windermere, paddling in the shallows, and renting a small rowing boat that he sits in calmly while the oars push themselves.

It's not that hard to make himself look like an adult so the boat rental place will serve him. He figures that if he can make himself invisible and conceal his scar, then why couldn't he make himself appear to be a full grown adult? He is sensible enough to check it in a mirror before approaching anyone though.

He still can't quite bring himself to get rid of or destroy his Famous Figurines or Kiwi. He leaves the figurines shrunk down and buried at the bottom of his trunk, but he likes Kiwi too much to leave her shut away when he's somewhere he doesn't have to worry about people making fun of him.

He buys a camera the next day and takes it with him when he goes back to the Lake District, this time hiking along the trails. He takes pictures of himself and of Kiwi, balancing her in trees or on rocks. The day after that he goes to visit Stonehenge; the day after, the Roman Baths; and the day after that, the National History Museum and the London Dungeons.

It's his birthday the next day and McGonagall floos into the Leaky Cauldron just as Harry's deciding what to have for breakfast, hurrying over with a tense expression.

"Mr Evans, I need a private word."

They go up to his room where McGonagall sits him down and tells him that Sirius Black has escaped from Azkaban prison and that she wants him to come back to Hogwarts because of it. She promises him he won't have to see Snape or Dumbledore but it's simply not safe for him to stay at the Leaky Cauldron alone.

"Sorry, professor, I'm not going back until September."

"Have you listened to a word I've said? Black is incredibly dangerous."

"I know. I read about him when I first learned about Voldemort. I know he killed all those people the night Voldemort tried to kill me and he probably wants _me_ dead for defeating Voldemort, but I'm not going back. I can look after myself and I'm doing as you said and staying in wizarding London," he lies. "But I'm not going back and if you try to make me I'll just run away again and this time I'll stay invisible."

She relents, deciding it's better to let him stay at the Leaky Cauldron than have him running off God only knows where when Sirius Black is on the loose.

He spends his birthday in Diagon Alley, debating whether he should keep his word to McGonagall and stay there now that there's a mass murderer on the loose, but he's had too much fun this past week to give it up and as he'd said, he can look after himself.

Over the next four weeks he visits a different place almost every day, staying in Diagon Alley only on Sundays when McGonagall comes to check him. He visits Brighton beach; London Zoo and the Natural History Museum twice more; Warwick Castle, which is nothing compared to Hogwarts, to watch sword fights and bird shows; Buckingham Palace, where he sneaks into the No Visitors areas and catches a glimpse of the Queen; and the Loch Ness to see the lake monster. He visits cathedrals and botanical gardens, gets drunk at a rave in Blackpool (he doesn't like it) and stoned at the Strawberry Fair in Cambridge (not so bad), and climbs (well, flies mostly) up Ben Nevis mountain in Scotland.

He stays in Diagon Alley on the thirty-first, figuring he should spend the day relaxing before going back to Hogwarts. He's already bought his school supplies, but he takes his camera film to get developed, paying the extra price for one-hour development, and visiting Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour. As he sits there, he notices Tyler Lyle with his friend Alex Stone, and two people who are obviously Alex's parents. He waves when he catches Tyler's eye and the four of them come over to join him.

"Hey, Harry, how's your holiday been?" Tyler greets, dropping into a chair when they've got their ice creams.

"Pretty good. Yours?"

"Not bad. This is Alex's mum and dad, by the way," he introduces because Alex is already digging into his chocolate sundae. Mr and Mrs Stone greet him with warm smiles. "You here alone?"

"Yeah, I'm staying at the Leaky Cauldron."

"So are we. Marcus is at work but he wants to come to Kings Cross in the morning, so we're staying at the Cauldron tonight so he doesn't have to go back to Bath. Dunno why, he travels back and forth every day, but you know what adults are like."

He joins them as they finish their shopping for school supplies, just to have some company, but picks up his photos alone so that Alex and Tyler won't ask to see them immediately. He'll share them when he's been through and taken out the ones with Kiwi in.

He meets Tyler's adopted dad, Marcus Fleetwood, later that evening just as they sit down in the Leaky Cauldron for dinner. Mr Fleetwood is old, walks with a limp and uses a walking stick, but his back is straight and his hardened face says he's not someone to be taken lightly. Nonetheless, he greets Harry with a handshake and a smile that makes his face a little less imposing.

"Pleasure to meet you, Harry. Are you here alone?"

"Yes, sir, but I'm alright."

"How are you getting to the station in the morning?"

"I'm taking a taxi."

"That's not safe with Sirius Black on the loose. Would you like to come with us? Jon," he says with a nod to Mr Stone, "will be going to work in the morning anyway so we'll have a spare seat in the car."

"Oh, I'm not sure—" he begins, but Mrs Stone cuts him off.

"Nonsense, dear. You can't travel alone. You'll come with us."

"Oh, well, thank you." Slightly embarrassed at the insistence, he seeks to change the subject and asks, "Where do you work, Mr Fleetwood?"

"Ministry of Magic, and call me Marcus."

"Just don't ask about what he does," Tyler says. "He's Head of the Department of Mysteries and the only mystery is how he doesn't kill himself out of boredom from all the paperwork he has to do."

Marcus owns a large, sleek, shiny black saloon car, and when Harry and Tyler lift their trunks into the boot the next morning, Harry realises it's been enchanted to be larger on the inside. There's no other way they'd fit three trunks in there. When they're all in, Harry, Tyler, and Alex sit comfortably in the back, while Mrs Stone sits in the front and Mr Fleetwood drives.

Harry thanks them again at the station and goes to find a carriage while Tyler and Alex say goodbye. He finds Cid Villiers sat with Ed Coleman in a compartment and joins them. Cid's not pleased to hear Harry spent the summer visiting all sorts of places; his dad clamps down on his going out when Sirius Black escapes.

"Sucks for you," Tyler says unsympathetically when he hears. "Marcus put a tracking charm on me and convinced Alex's parents to do the same and we had an earlier curfew, but that was it."

"My parents didn't do anything," Ed remarks. "He was reported on the Muggle news but they didn't make such a big deal out of it as the _Prophet_. Nick and I agreed we'd keep quiet about it so they didn't decide it was too dangerous for us to go out."

"So unfair," Cid grumbles. "Wish I'd spent the summer with my mother instead; she's always eager to get me out of the house, but that might have upset Layla so maybe it's best I stayed with Dad..."

"Layla?"

"My sister. Half-sister, strictly, but neither of us care about that. She's starting at Hogwarts next year."

"I'd like a sister," Alex muses. "Or a brother. It'd be cool to have a sibling."

"Not older ones," Ed counters. "Old brothers suck. Sisters are alright though, but that could be because she's ten years older than me rather than because she's a girl."

"Is your sister a witch too?" Harry asks and Ed nods.

"We all are. Mum and Dad were pleased with that. Nick says when Abi got her letter, they were worried we wouldn't be magic and it'd give us an inferiority complex or something. Dad's still hoping one of us will join the RAF though."

"RAF?" Cid repeats blankly.

"Royal Air Force. They're sort of like Muggle soldiers only they fight in aeroplanes instead of on the ground."

"Aeroplanes are those things Muggles use to fly, right? How do you fight in those things? And fight who?"

Ed, Tyler, Harry, and Alex (who, despite being pureblood, grew up in a Muggle neighbourhood and went to a Muggle primary school) explain aeroplanes, guns, and the Muggle military until the trolley witch comes by just after one o'clock, at which point Cid says they've bored him long enough.

They're not far from Hogsmeade when the train comes to a shuddering halt. Tyler gets up, prepared to leave the train as fast as possible, but they've not arrived yet. The lights go out and Alex squeaks nervously, then an intense cold washes over Harry and the rest of the compartment seems to fade away. He hears screaming and somewhere past that his uncle's voice calling him an ungrateful freak and the memory of pain as a large fist smacks against his head again and again and again until everything goes black.

* * *

Remus Lupin would be lying if he said he hadn't hoped to see his best friend's son on the train to Hogwarts, and he's especially curious about him after Dumbledore informs him about Harry's name change, his disabilities, and his desire to keep his identity secret. But he doesn't expect that the first time he sees the boy, Harry would be on the floor of a compartment, body twitching and a jumper tucked under his head, while four other unnerved second years sit with their feet pulled up out of the way, one of them vomiting into a paper bag while his friend holds his hair back.

"Don't," Cid says when Lupin starts towards Harry. "We have to wait for it to stop. It might hurt him if we try moving him."

Lupin nods. "What's his name? I'm going to send an owl ahead to the school nurse."

"Harry Evans."

"And him?" he asks, gesturing to Tyler.

"Tyler Lyle, but he just gets travel sick."

"Yeah, but he took his potion an hour ago," Alex says, "and he nearly fainted when that thing turned up."

When Lupin comes back from the driver's cabin, Tyler's stopped throwing up but still looks nauseous, and Harry's up on the seats, drowsy but responsive. When both he and Tyler refuse chocolate, Lupin insists on staying with them until the train reaches the station and when they get there, he stays with them to the carriages that take them up to the school.

"We can look after him, professor," Cid says as Tyler groans at the sight of the carriage and the thought of more travelling. "We've been told what to do."

"There are more Dementors guarding the school," Lupin tells them. "I think it's best if I stay with you in case he has another seizure."

They don't argue with that.

"Ugly horses," Tyler mutters as he climbs in a carriage with Ed and Alex while Harry, Cid, and Lupin move to the one ahead. Lupin glances at him in surprise as they pass but doesn't stop, and hears Alex ask confusedly, "What horses?"

"You the new Defence professor?" Cid asks Lupin as the carriage heads up to the castle.

"I am."

"How come you took the train? I thought professors went to the castle earlier in the summer."

"I was ill and couldn't come up until today."

Cid nods then shivers as the carriage passes through the gates and past the Dementors. Beside him, Harry shudders but doesn't fall into another seizure. They reach the castle a minute later and when they get out, Harry says a little weakly, "Tyler's right, they are ugly."

"What are?" Cid asks, not noticing Lupin's surprised and sad look at Harry.

"Those horses."

"What horses?"

"Pulling the carriages."

"I think you're seeing things, Harry. There are no horses there."

Snape and Pomfrey meet them in the Entrance Hall. Snape's expression instantly darkens when he sees Lupin standing by Harry.

"We'll take them from here," he says snidely as Pomfrey bends to inspect Harry. "They don't need _your_ help, Lupin."

"I don't need _your_ help," Harry snaps at him, eyes and voice full of hate despite wanting to just lie down and go to sleep. His friends look surprised at his tone and Lupin looks from him to Snape with a questioning expression.

"Ah, Poppy, you're here," McGonagall says, hurrying over with a slightly confused Hermione close behind her. "Bring him to my office."

Snape looks like he wants to say something, but McGonagall shoots him a dark look and he turns to the other students. "You four, move along."

"Madam Pomfrey, you might want to check Tyler as well," Lupin says. "Alex, was it? Said he very nearly fainted when the Dementor came by and he was too ill to take any chocolate."

"I'd thank you not to concern yourself with _my_ students, Lupin."

Lupin looks at Snape calmly and replies gently, "As a teacher at this school, I will concern myself with all its students."

"Mr Lyle, come with us," McGonagall says before Snape can respond. "You three, on your way. You two," she adds only loud enough for Lupin and Snape to hear, "keep your rivalry away from the children. You're supposed to set an example."

* * *

Tyler looks like he might throw up again when Pomfrey practically force-feeds him and Harry some chocolate. Harry sits idly eating his as Pomfrey checks him over. It chases away the lingering coldness that the Dementor caused and by the time Pomfrey's done he feels up to going to the Great Hall. He and Tyler are told to wait outside while McGonagall talks to Hermione, and then the three of them and McGonagall walk down to the Great Hall together.

"Are you alright?" Hermione asks Harry, who nods.

"Just a little tired. How are you? Did you have a good holiday?"

"Not bad. I'll tell you about it later and you can tell me all the places you've been."

"How did you end up friends with a Gryffindor third year?" Tyler asks Harry when they reach the Great Hall and Hermione heads off to the Gryffindor table.

"I knew her before I started at Hogwarts," Harry tells him, which isn't a complete lie.

"Fair enough. Did you see those horse things pulling the carriages?"

Harry nods. "Thought I was seeing things. Cid said there was nothing there."

"Alex and Ed couldn't see them either. We couldn't both have been seeing things, right?"

"Unless it was the Dementor that caused it. It didn't affect them as much as us."

"Maybe."

They join Cid at the Slytherin table just after the last new first year is sorted and Flitwick leaves with the Sorting Hat, and Dumbledore rises, drawing their attention before the food arrive.

"As you may have noticed, Hogwarts is playing host to the Dementors of Azkaban on business for the Ministry of Magic. They are stationed at every entrance to the grounds and while they are with us, I must make it plain that nobody is to leave school without permission. Dementors are not to be fooled by tricks or disguises—or even Invisibility Cloaks."

Dumbledore's gaze flicks towards Harry then, but he needn't bother. Harry has no plans to test either his cloak or his Wish Magic against the Dementors. He'll gladly stay as far away from them as possible.

"It is not in the nature of a Dementor to understand pleading or excuses. I therefore warn each and every one of you to give them no reason to harm you. I look to the prefects, and our new Head Boy and Girl, to make sure that no student runs afoul of the Dementors."

That's all he has to say before they eat. Harry doesn't get a chance to talk to Jia that evening. She's sat too far down the table from him, Tyler, and Cid and by the time the meal is over, Harry's about ready to collapse. He barely hears Dumbledore's post-meal announcement introducing Lupin as the new Defence teacher and Hagrid as the new Care of Magical Creatures teacher, and trudges down to Slytherin between Cid and Tyler without a word, goes to the dorm and digs out his pyjamas, changes, and then falls into bed, asleep almost instantly.


	17. Chapter 17

Harry feels better by morning and better still after he's had a shower. He grins at Jia when he leaves the boys' corridor at the same time she leaves the girls' one, but instead of returning it she sighs, as though annoyed to see him, and shrugs her bag further up her shoulder before approaching him.

"Look, Harry, I don't think we should be friends anymore."

He blinks. "What?"

"It's just that we hung out together at first because you knew where everything was and I didn't want to get lost, and then we just sort of carried on, then I had a bit of a crush on you but I'm over that now. Over the holidays I realised that we just don't really have anything in common and it seems like we'd both be better off if we just admitted that we're not really friends, and move on."

"Oh," he says. "Um. Alright."

She smiles, but only the way she'd smile at a stranger in the street—polite and courteous, but lacking any warmth of feeling. "I hope you had a good summer."

Harry stands watching her leave the common room, feeling confused and a little lost. Were they really 'not really friends'? He thought they were. They sat together in class, walked to the Hospital Wing every morning for their potions, and did homework together. Admittedly that was all they did. They didn't play games or go to clubs or sit and talk about things. He'd never really thought about it before, but he supposes she's probably right.

"You'll get over it soon enough."

He jumps, turning to see Logan Sparrow, the boy he ate Christmas dinner with the year before, stood just outside the corridor to the boys' dorm. He hadn't heard him come in. "Sorry?"

"Your girlfriend. You'll get over her and move on."

"She wasn't my girlfriend."

Logan shrugs. "So don't look so miserable that she dumped you."

He passes Jia on his way to the Hospital Wing but she doesn't even glance at him. He's surprised to realise it doesn't bother him.

Their first class is Defence Against the Dark Arts. Lupin sits at his desk and gives them an oral quiz, saying he knows of Lockhart's incompetence and wants to find out what skill level they're at before he continues. He gives out a house point for every correct answer, and two if someone can expand on the topic. By the end of the lesson, Slytherin's almost twenty points up and seven of those are from Harry alone.

Harry has Potions that afternoon. He doesn't look at Snape, instead staring at the parchment in front of him as he takes notes and then keeping his gaze down as they start brewing. Snape doesn't call on him to answer questions or comment on his potion, which he ruins because just being in Snape's presence makes him too angry to properly pay attention to what he's doing.

* * *

Lupin doesn't notice Snape as he's walking to the staff room just after classes on Wednesday afternoon until he almost walks into him and Snape snarls, "Watch where you're going."

"Sorry, Severus," Lupin replies calmly, looking up from the fifth year papers he's reading. Snape's lip curls but before he can say anything there's a terrified cry from inside the staff room and both men grab their wands, Lupin dropping his papers in the process, and hurry inside.

The first thing they notice is the horrendous smell. The second is Harry, backed into the corner and his face white as a sheet as he stares at a balding man of average height and wearing a long black coat. Harry holds one hand up, pointing it shakily at the man and shouting for him to stop, his voice full of panic, but the man keeps advancing.

" _Incarcerus!_ " Snape snarls, and there's a bang as ropes appear and bind themselves around the man, who staggers but doesn't fall and turns to face him, showing eyes that are entirely red save for the pitch black pupils. Lupin runs forwards to put himself between the man and Harry, who's on the verge of hyperventilating, and the movement draws the man's attention. The ropes fall away as there's a loud crack and the man turns into a hovering silver orb. At the same moment, the furniture in the room lifts of the floor and then the orb flies away from Lupin and Harry to crash into the wardrobe at the other end of the room with enough force to smash through the doors.

Lupin lowers his wand, baffled as the furniture in the room settles back down. Behind him, Harry is still on the brink of hyperventilating and he turns, bending slightly to put his hands on the boy's shoulders.

"Harry, calm down. You're safe now."

"I couldn't—I—my mag-"

"Stop. Just breathe, alright? Let go into the corridor to get away from this smell."

Snape repairs the wardrobe with a flick of his wand then locks the Boggart inside and follows Lupin and Harry out, just as eager to escape the horrendous stench.

"That—what was that?" Harry asks Lupin shakily when he's got his breathing under control.

"It was a Boggart, a shape-shifter that takes the form of whatever it thinks will frighten us most."

Harry glances towards the staff room door and swallows. His face is still pale.

"Harry, who was that man?" Lupin asks him gently.

"No one. Just someone I met once," he says when Lupin frowns disapprovingly at his first answer.

"Someone who still terrifies you now," Snape points out. Harry doesn't even glance at him.

"I should get back to Slytherin. Thanks, professor."

"Wait," Snape orders. "What were you doing in there in the first place?"

Once again Harry doesn't even glance at him, eyes on Lupin as he answers the question. "Cid dared me to put some dungbombs in there."

"That explains the smell," Lupin murmurs, smiling slightly. "I think the Boggart scared you enough so we won't punish you, don't you agree, Professor Snape?"

Snape nods once and Harry mutters a thanks and rushes off.

"Why does he hate you so much?"

Left alone with Lupin, Snape's expression turns distasteful instantly. "I don't see that it's any concern of yours," he sneers, turning and walking away.

"Does he know?" Lupin calls after him and Snape stops, turning slowly to face him.

"Know what?"

"I shared a dorm with James for seven years, Severus. That boy isn't—"

"No," Snape cuts in, stalking forwards, expression angry. "Nor does anyone else so you'll keep it to yourself, mutt."

"Do you plan to tell him?"

"No, and neither will you or the entire school will know what you are and Dumbledore can find a new Defence professor."

* * *

At breakfast on Friday Harry hears about Neville's Boggart turning into Professor Snape during his Defence Against the Dark Arts lesson. The Slytherin second years have Potions class with the Hufflepuffs that morning and Harry's never heard the room so silent before. Not even any of the Slytherins dare speak out of turn when Snape's clearly in such a foul mood.

Harry doesn't get a chance to speak to Neville and Hermione until the weekend. He catches up with Hermione on the way out of the Great Hall after breakfast on Saturday, but she tells him she can't stop to chat.

"Sorry, Harry, I need to get to the library. I've got a ton of homework."

"Already?"

"I'm taking a lot of classes this year. I'm sorry, we'll talk later, alright?"

He spends the morning with Neville instead, sitting out in the courtyard and talking about their summers, the Boggart (Neville dreads Potions even more now), and the Care of Magical Creatures lesson where Draco Malfoy got mauled by a hippogriff.

* * *

Draco's first instinct, once Madam Pomfrey fixes his arm from the hippogriff attack, is to milk it for all it's worth. The injury would be a great way to garner sympathy and to piss off the Gryffindors. He might even be able to get that brainless oaf Hagrid fired.

But this is supposed to be the year he joins the Slytherin Quidditch team. His father promises him a Firebolt if he gets onto the team, but if he milks the injury, he'll have had no chance of making it and even getting Hagrid fired isn't worth that.

* * *

Harry's good mood turns sour at lunch on Sunday when Malfoy swaggers in with a grin on his face and the news that he's the new Slytherin Seeker and will be getting a Firebolt from his father as a reward. Harry stomps out the Great Hall and up to the library, thinking he'll find Hermione and have a chat, but she's so focused on her work that he doesn't have the heart to disturb her, so he just finds a book and settles down to read, unwilling to go back to Slytherin and listen to Malfoy's bragging.

He starts searching the library for information about demons. Seeing the Boggart turn into Crowley has forced him to accept that his time is running out whether he likes it or not and so far he's done nothing about it. He only has five years left and it doesn't feel like it's been five years since he made the deal. Ten years felt like such a long time when he was seven; now it seems hardly any time at all. So he searches the library for anything he can find about demons, hoping maybe he'll find something that'll tell him how to escape the death clause in his contract, or at least put it off for a while.

The whole school knows about it when Malfoy's Firebolt arrives because he opens it at breakfast one morning, a massive grin on his face and almost every Slytherin begging just to touch it. Quidditch players from the other houses look sick with envy and at the Gryffindor table Oliver Wood slams a fork into the table before stalking out the Great Hall. It's no secret how desperate he is to win the Quidditch Cup for Gryffindor now that it's his last year.

At the end of September, Harry melts a cauldron in Potions class when Snape grabs his wrist to stop him putting an extra dose of puffer-fish eyes into his Swelling Solution, which would make it boil over and become extremely volatile. Harry's anger at the man hasn't abated at all and his touch precipitates an outburst of magic that has Snape snatching his hand back as though burnt and leaves Harry's cauldron as a twisted heap of metal while the students scramble to get away from the spreading aquamarine solution that would make their feet grow to three times the normal size. Only Harry, being right in front of it, doesn't move quick enough and he has to grab the desk to stop himself from losing his balance as his feet swell. Snape _evanesco_ 's the potion and fetches a Deflating Draught from his desk to shrink Harry's feet down before giving him a detention.

"Eight o'clock this evening, my office."

Harry almost doesn't go. He doesn't want to spend any more time in Snape's presence than he already has to, but he knows if he skips it then he'll only get another one, so at eight o'clock he unhappily trudges from Slytherin house to Snape's office, where he's surprised to find not just Snape, but McGonagall as well.

"Have a seat, Mr Evans," McGonagall says. "It's time you and Professor Snape had a talk."

Harry doesn't have to ask what about. He scowls and doesn't move. "Why?"

"Your anger at me is affecting your work and next time you might cause far more damage than big feet."

"Then don't touch me," Harry snaps.

"I was trying to prevent exactly what you caused, you idiot child."

"Like you would care if a potion blew up in my face."

Snape's face twists angrily. "Firstly, you might have some consideration for your friends and classmates; you are not the only person you put in danger. Secondly, do not presume to tell me I don't care about my students."

"Oh, your _students_. So we only matter when we're teenagers, is that it? Who cares what happens when we're kids? That's just—just—weeding out the ones that aren't strong enough to become teenagers and then you give a crap."

"I'm sorry!" Snape yells, getting to his feet, and Harry reels back in surprise. Snape looks down, inhales deeply and lets it out slowly, then looks up again. "I messed up. I assumed your uncle would respond to threats. I made it very clear what I would do if he continued to abuse you and had the police not arrived when they did I would have followed through."

"That was you?"

Snape nods. "I'm sorry," he repeats, calmer this time. "I should have done more to stop him."

"Why did you leave the presents?"

"They were giving you nothing; a child deserves something on their birthday and at Christmas."

"When I was five and I got sick, that was you too, wasn't it? Why did you take you me back?" he asks when Snape nods. It's selfish, he knows; why should Snape look after a five year old boy that isn't his child? But Snape must like him a little if he cared enough to take him in during the summer and help him get his epilepsy diagnosis and everything else he's done, so Harry has to ask. "You took me away; why send me back to that place?"

"You were too ill to be left alone then, but I couldn't look after you, not properly. Albus told me there were protections on the house that he could put nowhere else."

Harry scoffs. "Yeah, protections against Voldemort and the Death Eaters. I'd rather face them than my uncle."

"So there'll be no more exploded cauldrons?" McGonagall asks. Harry notices she's got her wand in hand, as though she expects to need it, and he realises she's there to protect Snape if Harry attacked him again. "Regular potion accidents aside, that is."

"I still hate you," Harry tells Snape. "Saying sorry doesn't make up for it. I'm not forgiving you."

Snape nods. "Understandable. As long as you can control your anger around me so that you're not putting yourself or anyone else in danger."

"I'll do my best."

* * *

The older years have their first Hogsmeade weekend on Hallowe'en. Harry watches them head off then wanders up towards the Owlery to see Hedwig, but as he's passing through the second floor corridor, a voice calls his name and he looks back to see Lupin leaning out his office and inviting him in for some tea.

Harry likes Lupin. He's friendly, his classes are interesting, and he doesn't treat Harry weirdly after seeing him almost break down during the incident with the Boggart, as Harry feared he might.

There's a grindylow in Lupin's office, a water demon with long spindly legs which he's procured for his next third year class. It's a weird little creature and Harry watches it pull faces and flex its legs against the glass while Lupin boils some water for tea.

"How are you?" he asks Harry as he hands him a cup.

"Fine, thanks."

Lupin nods and sits behind his desk, blowing his own tea and then sipping at it before speaking again. "Forgive me if I'm being too forward, Harry, but the man that your Boggart turned into—are you in danger from him?"

"No," Harry says. It's only half a lie; Crowley's not a danger to him until he's almost eighteen. He's got five more years before he really has to worry. "I swear, professor."

"Alright," Lupin says honestly. "I would just like you to know that if you ever need help with anything, anything at all, I'm more than happy to assist you."

Harry nods. "There was something I wanted to ask, sir. The horses that pull the carriages up to the school..."

"What about them?"

"You can see them too? Why can't some people?"

Lupin sets down his cup and looks at Harry with sad eyes. "They're called Thestrals. They can only be seen by people who have seen death."

"You mean death like a reaper?"

"No, I mean seeing another living being die."

"Oh."

There was a lady on the streets once. She was blind and alone and clearly dying so Harry sat next to her, conjured a shield to protect them both from the pouring rain, and held her hand all night. He never made himself visible—there was no need—and she talked in a weak voice about her daughter, who social services took away after the lady lost her job and couldn't afford to pay for their house. The daughter was called Mary and she'd be twelve that year. The lady has never seen her, already blind when she gave birth, but says she has an adorable voice with a lisp she hates, loves horses and dolls and dresses, and handles the death of her father with incredible strength. The lady was dead by dawn. Harry never knew her name.

Their conversation is interrupted by a knock at the door and when Lupin calls for entry it opens to reveal Snape, holding a goblet of steaming potion. He pauses when he sees Harry, who instantly looks down at his tea, ignoring the Potions Master as he sets the goblet on the desk and leaves again.

"I'm afraid I'm prying too much, but do you mind if I ask why you dislike Professor Snape so much?" Lupin asks Harry. Harry sets his half empty tea cup on the desk.

"I should go. I have homework to do. Thank you for the tea."

"Of course. Come back any time."

* * *

The Slytherins have barely reached the dungeons after the feast that night when Snape turns up and orders them all back to the Great Hall. Confused, they head back and find out that Sirius Black attempted to break into Gryffindor tower during the feast.

Everyone has to sleep in the Great Hall that night, camping in squishy purple sleeping bags that Dumbledore conjures with a flick of his wand. Harry settles down with Tyler and Cid and they spend half an hour discussing how Black got into the castle and what he's after. Harry mostly just listens and when they finally settle down, after Cid complains about how uncomfortable sleeping bags are, Harry lies on his back and stares up at the starry night sky of the enchanted ceiling. He's not bothered by the sleeping bags, but he keeps thinking about Sirius Black. He hadn't worried about him before because there are only a handful of people who know he's Harry Potter. He keeps the scar hidden all the time and there probably isn't anyone who expects the Boy Who Lived to be a half-blind, epileptic, scrawny little boy. They probably think he's a strong, self-confident young man with a charming smile and skills with a wand that'd awe the common person.

But Sirius Black has spent twelve years in Azkaban and everyone says he's crazy; maybe he doesn't care that he doesn't know what Harry Potter looks like. It isn't hard to figure out that he's the right age for a Hogwarts student so if Black is after him, it'd make sense that he might assume that's where he'll find the person who defeated his lord and master. Black won't have any way of knowing which house Harry is in either so maybe he started with Gryffindor, which is where a self-confident young man with a charming smile would likely be placed, and plans to try breaking into the other houses next until he finds the boy he simply thinks is Harry Potter.


	18. Chapter 18

The Fat Lady is replaced by a portrait of a knight called Sir Cadogan who, according to Neville and Hermione, is a complete menace who likes to change the passwords often and irregularly and spends half his time challenging people to duels instead of letting them into the tower. Neville particularly hates him; he has enough trouble remembering the passwords as it is.

The first Quidditch match of the season is the following Saturday, between Gryffindor and Slytherin, and the weather's awful. It rains so hard that they can hardly see anything from the stands, just blurs of colour, and Lee Jordan's commentary is mostly drowned out. Harry stands huddled with the other second years, arms wrapped around him in a pretence of fighting off the cold when he's keeping himself perfectly warm with Wish Magic. He still has to let the rain soak him, but it's not so bad when he's not freezing as well.

He never sees the Dementors. He feels the over-whelming cold sink into his very bones, completely unaffected by his Wish Magic, and hears the screaming start again, just like last time, with his uncle's voice shouting over the top, and somewhere past that a woman's voice...

_"Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!"_

_"Stand aside, you silly girl... stand aside, now..."_

_"Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead—"_

* * *

He wakes up in the Hospital Wing feeling like he's been trampled.

"You were," Cid tells him. He sits in a chair between Harry's bed and the next, in which Tyler sits. "Everyone freaked the fuck out when the Dementors came and they started rushing to get away and you got a bit trampled when you started seizing. He threw up on you," he adds, jerking a thumb at Tyler. "Then passed out."

"Sorry," Tyler apologises.

"I wish throwing up and passing out was all I did when they came near me. God, they're horrible."

"You're telling me," Tyler mutters.

"What about the match? Who won?"

"Gryffindor," Cid grumbles, "but Flint and Malfoy are asking for a rematch 'cause of the Dementors. We'll need it—they won by two hundred points—but I don't reckon Dumbledore'll allow it."

Cid stays until Madam Pomfrey kicks him out. She insists on keeping Harry and Tyler in the hospital wing though and it's midnight when Harry turns in his bed and peers across the dark ward.

"Hey, Tyler, you awake?"

"Yeah."

"When the Dementors come near you, do you... hear things?"

Tyler doesn't answer immediately. He stays silent so long Harry thinks he's not going to answer or has fallen asleep, but eventually he says in a quiet voice, "I remember my mum dying."

Harry inhales sharply.

"It was a fire, when I saw six. Her cigarette lighter exploded. I saw the whole thing."

"That's horrible."

"What about you?"

He doesn't really want to say, but Tyler told his so it's only fair.

"I remember when my—when the burglar broke in and attacked me and... and I can hear my mum dying too."

Tyler shifts in his bed, rolling onto his side to look over at him. "I thought your parents died when you were a baby."

"They did and I don't really remember it, but when the Dementors come near I can hear her screaming. She was killed right in front of me."

"Shit."

They say nothing else and eventually Harry sleeps, dreams disturbed by his dying mother.

* * *

Pomfrey keeps Harry in for the rest of the weekend, although she allows Tyler to leave on Sunday morning. When Harry complains, she points out that Tyler hadn't been trampled or had a seizure, merely thrown up and passed out. But Hermione and Neville come to visit him, which he appreciates, especially when they talk about the Dementors and Hermione mentions that Dumbledore shot some silvery stuff at them during the match and that Lupin did the same thing on the train to Hogwarts.

"You could ask one of them to teach you it," she suggests. Harry's not asking Dumbledore to teach him anything, but he likes the idea of asking Lupin.

"Can't you use your Wish Magic against them?" Neville asks.

"Not really. By the time they get close I can't really think properly to Wish anything, and then I have a seizure and I'm completely useless. Unless I was constantly Wishing for an anti-Dementor shield, but I'm not sure it'd really work."

He takes their advice and hangs back after Defence class on Monday and tells Tyler to as well, but the moment he asks about the anti-Dementor spell, Lupin shakes his head.

"That's a NEWT level spell, boys. It's incredibly difficult magic. I wouldn't expect any second year to manage it."

"That blows," Tyler grumbles. Harry says nothing. "It'd be good to be able to ward them off."

Harry goes by Lupin's office that afternoon, alone. He shuts the door behind him and takes the seat Lupin gestures to.

"What can I do for you?"

"On Hallowe'en, you said if I needed help with anything, I could ask you, right?"

"If this is about the Dementors—"

"I can do the spell, professor. Tyler probably can't, but I can."

"You're very confident in your abilities," Lupin remarks.

"Please, sir. Just tell me the incantation and show me the wand movements and I can do it. I need to be able to fight the Dementors. You don't know what it's like when they're near me."

"I can imagine," Lupin says softly. "Dementors make us relive out very worst memories. For you..." he trails off, gaze flicking to Harry's blind eye.

Harry suppresses a scowl. He doesn't want or need people's sympathy, but if it helps him convince Lupin then he'll put up with it.

"I hear my mum dying," he says, and the twinge of guilt at using her to get what he wants isn't enough to make him stop. "She was killed when I was a baby and I can hear her screaming when they come near me. Please, sir, can you at least let me try the spell?"

It works. Lupin relents. "After Christmas. I have a lot to do before then."

"Just tell me the incantation and I can practice on my own."

"There is more to the Patronus Charm than an incantation and the correct wand movements. After Christmas," he promises. "Then I'll teach you it."

Harry won't wait. He's got the name of the spell now, so he looks it up in the library. It takes a bit of searching but eventually he finds it. He checks the book out and takes it with him to the Room of Requirement, reading the passage yet again and muttering the incantation under his breath then turning to face the centre of the room. For his happy memory, he picks the day in the summer that he visited the Lake District, remembers how content he was to sit on a boat in the middle of the lake with the sun shining down on him and only the wildlife to keep him company.

" _Expecto Patronum!_ "

It's not quite enough. He manages to create a silver mist, but it doesn't form into a corporeal shape. He picks a different memory from the summer—visiting the Natural History Museum and flying up, invisible, to put Kiwi on top of the T-rex skeleton so he could take a picture—but that doesn't work either. He tries again and again, using every memory he has of the summer, but nothing works. The Patronus refuses to fully form.

The Room provides him with a beanbag and he flops onto it, staring at the ceiling as he thinks. Why won't it work? He has the power, the wand motions are simple enough, and he says the incantation perfectly, which means the problem is his memories. Are they not happy enough? They're the only happy ones he has. There's nothing happy about his childhood with the Dursleys, nor his time on the streets. His first year at Hogwarts was alright but it didn't generate anything happy, and the second year he spent half of it unknowingly dying and the other half possessed so there is certainly nothing there to make him happy. This August is the only time he's done anything fun...

That, he realises, is the problem. The summer was fun, but not happy. He thoroughly enjoyed visiting various places around the country, but it hadn't made him happy. There was always the underlying anger at Snape and a pervasive sense of loneliness that he was never really able to ignore. Kiwi didn't quite make up for not having any parents or friends to keep him company while he was out.

*FPS*

Lupin's surprised when Harry approaches him after his next Defence class and says he won't need anti-Dementor lessons anymore.

"What made you change your mind?"

Harry shrugs, not looking at him. "You were right. It's too complex."

"You tried it yourself," he realises. "You know, with guidance you may find it a little easier."

But Harry shakes his head, still not looking at him, and Lupin thinks he's not telling him everything. "It's fine. You said you were busy and I don't want to take up your time. Thanks for offering and I'm sorry to bother you."

* * *

"Demons? Why are you looking at stuff about demons?"

Harry jumps, turning to glare at Tyler. He's in the common room, pouring through books that take up an entire table. "Don't sneak up on me like that."

"I didn't sneak."

"I'm half-blind. If you creep up on my left, it counts as sneaking. Give me that."

He snatches his notebook back from Tyler, who raises his eyebrows questioningly. "Demon deals? That's not for any classes, is it?"

"It's just research. I came across them in another book and wanted to know more. You know I'm a bookworm."

"Yeah, but usually it's history."

"This is history. There's a lot of speculation that notable historical figures made their success as the result of demon deals. Nicolas Flamel for one."

"Who?"

"Nicolas Flamel, the only known creator of the Philosopher's Stone, but he's dead now."

"Yeah? Maybe I should make one, make myself super-intelligent so I never have to study again."

"That's not funny."

"Who's joking? Not all of us like pouring over books all the time. I swear you should have been in Ravenclaw."

"You'd sell your soul just so you can not study anymore?" Harry snaps, unable to keep the anger out of his voice at how stupid Tyler's being. "You think that's worth dying at twenty-two years old?"

Tyler frowns. "Why would that make me die at twenty-two?"

"Demons don't just buy your soul, they take it to hell. Ten years after you make a deal the hellhounds come and rip you up and tear you apart so you die and the demon can take your soul to hell and torture you for the rest of eternity."

"Shit. I wouldn't sell my soul for _that_."

The book thumps as Harry closes it and begins gathering his stuff up. "Then don't joke about it."

* * *

A few days into December Harry's relaxing in the common with the other second years when the discussion turns to the holidays. Everyone is going home and listening to them talk gives Harry the impression he's going to be one of very few students staying at the castle for the holidays. This suspicion is confirmed when Snape comes around a few days later with the sign-up sheet for those who are staying and the only other Slytherin to put their name up is Miles Bletchley, a fifth year. But when Harry gets up to add his name underneath, Tyler grabs his arm.

"That reminds me—I spoke to Marcus about you and he said you can stay with us for the holidays if you want."

Harry blinks. "I can?"

"Sure. I told him that almost no one was staying and he said I could invite you. It's gotta be better than staying here with Bletchley."

Harry grins. "Thanks!"

* * *

Tyler lives in a large house on a small cul-de-sac in Bath. It's one of five houses on the street and Tyler tells him that only three of them are occupied, one by him and Marcus, one by Alex Stone and his parents, and one by a Muggle family.

Tyler's bedroom is in the attic. Harry's surprised to hear that, but when he gets up there it's not the dank, musty room he expected, but a wide open space painted in light blue with a double bed in the centre and a desk sitting under the skylight. A TV sits on the dresser with a video player beside it and a CD player sat on top of that. There's a huge poster of a group of women in bikinis on one slanted wall and another poster of a shirtless man in extremely low cut and unbuttoned jeans opposite it. A pile of comics are on the floor— _The Adventures of Martin Miggs, the Mad Muggle_ mixed in with _Superman_ —and Harry notices that _Break with a Banshee_ by Gilderoy Lockhart is being used to keep the desk level. He thinks the entire room is brilliant, a perfect mix of magic and Muggle.

Harry's set up in the guest room. He's woken the next morning by a persistent banging on the door and when he staggers over to answer it he finds Alex Stone on the other side, grinning broadly while Tyler, who's dressed but yawning and hasn't brushed his hair, stands behind him.

"We're going over to Charlie's house. C'mon, I've got news!"

"Who's Charlie?" Harry asks sleepily, feeling as tired as Tyler looks. When he glances at his watch, he notices it's only just after nine and he and Tyler stayed up until three that night watching videos.

"She's our friend, a Muggle. She lives next to me, across the street. Come on, get dressed!"

Ten minutes later he follows them across the street and gets introduced to Mrs Bennett, a broad woman with lots of curly blonde hair and whose lips purse when she looks at Harry, although she's perfectly polite.

"I don't think she likes me," he whispers as they head upstairs.

"Don't worry, she doesn't really like anyone. Mr Bennett's cool though."

Charlie doesn't look anything like Mrs Bennett. She's slim and her hair is sleek and brown, and she's dressed in jeans and a pink t-shirt when they enter her room, which is almost completely covered in posters of shirtless men and pictures torn out of magazines, and her bed is half covered with stuffed animals. There's also a Jack Russell in a doggy bed in the corner, but he leaps up and comes over to greet them with a wagging tail and yaps when Alex bends down to scratch his ears.

"Harry, this is Charlie," Tyler introduces. "Charlie, Harry. He goes to our school."

"Hi, Harry. Nice to meet you. That's Sammy," she says, waving to the dog, who barks at the sound of his name.

"Hey. Hi, Sammy."

"So what's this news you dragged me out of bed for?" Tyler asks Alex.

Alex looks up from Sammy with a broad grin. "I'm gonna be a brother!"

Charlie squeals.

"Your mum's pregnant?" she cries. "That's so cool!"

"How is that cool?" Tyler asks. "Have you seen babies? They're noisy and messy."

"Oh don't be a poop head, Tyler. This is great news, Alex! Is it a boy or a girl?"

"Don't know yet. They won't find out until mum's next check up. I hope it's a girl. I'd love a little sister."

Harry congratulates Alex and the four of them talk for until Tyler suggests they go out. They take out Sammy and end up walking along a river, Alex and Charlie a little ahead of Tyler and Harry, while Sammy charges around snapping at birds and tripping over his own feet.

"That's pretty cool that Alex is going to be a brother," Harry remarks to Tyler, who grunts. "You don't think so?"

"I just don't see what's so great about it. Babies are annoying."

"It won't be a baby forever."

"Yeah, well. What do they need another kid for anyway? They've got Alex."

"That doesn't mean they don't want more."

Tyler just grunts again.

"Are you jealous?"

"No! Why would I be jealous?"

Harry shrugs. "Marcus doesn't have a wife and he's pretty old so he can't have any kids to give you a brother or sister."

"I'm not jealous. I don't want some stupid baby sister screaming all the time."

* * *

Harry enjoys the holiday break. He has fun with Tyler, Alex, and Charlie, who roam around their neighbourhood and walk up by the river or take a bus into town with only a brief yell to their parents to say where they're going. He doesn't see Marcus much as he works a lot and it never seems to be on any kind of ordinary schedule. But Tyler was right in the summer—he does seem to have a lot of paperwork whenever he comes home.

On New Years, the four of them are hanging out in Charlie's tree house, a massive thing built around the large tree at the end of her garden which has apparently served as a playhouse since Charlie was five, when Mrs Bennett's voice calls up to them, "Charlie, your friend Johnny's here."

Charlie swears. Tyler whirls to face her. "What's _he_ doing here?" he demands, and Charlie looks guilty.

"Who's Johnny?" Harry whispers to Alex, who bites at his lip as he watches the other two.

"He went to primary school with us. He used to bully Tyler a lot."

"He's sort of my boyfriend," Charlie admits.

Tyler's speechless. His jaw hangs open as he stares at Charlie, completely lost for words.

"We should go," Alex suggests, grabbing Tyler's hand. "C'mon."

"No, wait. You're going out with _him_?"

"He's not as bad as he used to be," Charlie defends. "And it's none of your business anyway."

Tyler gapes for a minute, then snaps his mouth shut, face turning angry. "Fine. Whatever. I don't care. Let's go."

He yanks open the tree house trapdoor and starts climbing down. Harry follows him, feeling awkward, and Alex shoots Charlie an apologetic look. "He'll get over it."

"I can't believe her," Tyler fumes as they leave the Bennetts' house.

"Tyler, she's right, it's none of our business if she wants to go out with him."

"She's supposed to be our friend."

"She is. That doesn't mean she can't go out with other people."

"But not Johnny Nevins! He's a bully! He picked on me _all_ the time. He picked on her too! Why would she even want to go out with him?"

"I don't know. Look, why don't we go over to your house and watch a film, that new ninja one you got for Christmas? We're going back to school tomorrow anyway. You'll forget all about Johnny by the time classes start."


	19. Chapter 19

It takes Harry all of an hour to figure out Hermione and Neville are keeping something from him. He bumps into them on the train back to Hogwarts and decides to join them for the rest of the trip. Tyler's still being grumpy and Harry can only put up with so much of his bad mood, but Hermione talks too much and Neville won't quite meet his gaze.

"What is it?"

"What's what?"

"What are you not telling me? I know there's something."

"It's nothing. It doesn't matter."

"Then why won't Neville look me in the eye?"

Hermione and Neville exchange a look. Harry's face is set, glancing between them, determined to find out what it is.

"We heard something," Hermione admits hesitantly, "when we were in Hogsmeade the day before term ended."

"Okay. What was it?"

"It was about Sirius Black."

Harry raises his eyebrows, silently asking again, 'What was it?' Neville stares at his shoes and Hermione looks like she'd rather have all her teeth pulled out without anaesthetic than tell him.

"Well?"

* * *

It was Black who betrayed his parents, Black who got them killed, Black who left Harry an orphan.

* * *

Harry doesn't touch his dinner that night. He sits at the Slytherin table staring at his plate, not even picking up a knife or fork. He doesn't pay attention to the conversations around him. Everything seems almost dulled, like his ears are full of water. He doesn't notice that Cid keeps shooting him worried looks, or hear Tyler, who's finally chilled out a little, ask if he's alright. When dinner's over, he stands up with everyone else and walks back to Slytherin, still silent, just following the crowd but hardly aware of where his feet are taking him.

"What's wrong with you? Scared the Dementors will get you again?"

Harry's forced to stop in the middle of the common room when Malfoy plants himself in the way. He looks up at the blond boy, whose smirk fades a little at the utterly blank expression on Harry's face.

"Fuck off, Malfoy."

Malfoy's eyes narrow. Harry's voice is as toneless as his face is expressionless, but Malfoy's not smart enough to see it for what it is. "Don't talk to me like that, you little tosser."

"I said FUCK OFF!"

There are shrieks as the fire in the hearth flares suddenly, sending a blast of heat rushing through the room. Malfoy jumps, glances at it then back at Harry.

"What the hell is wrong with you?!"

Instead of answering, Harry turns around and walks out the common room.

"Hey!" Cid calls. "It's almost curfew, where you going?"

The library's shut when he reaches it but a touch of his fingers has the lock sliding open. He slips inside, completely invisible, and goes straight to the Charms section to pick out the first book he can find on tracking spells.

Three hours later he shuts another book and returns it to its shelf. All the tracking spells say the same thing—to find someone, you need something of theirs. The more personal, the better, and blood or hairs are the most ideal. He has no way of finding anything of Black's, but he isn't about to let the restrictions of wand magic stop him.

He knows he needs to test it first. He takes a blank sheet of parchment and a pair of scissors from Madam Pince's desk and cuts out three arrows about the size of his palm. He writes Hermione's name in the arrow head of one, Snape's in the second, and Black's in the third. He pockets Snape and Black's and holds Hermione's on the flat of his hand.

"Point me to Hermione Granger," he orders it, and it spins to points to his left. He realises the flaw in his plan, thinks for a moment, and then says, "Direct me to Hermione Granger."

This time the arrow points towards the doors of the library.

It guides him all the way to Gryffindor Tower. Satisfied, Harry pockets it, takes out the arrow with Snape's name on, and does it again. When he stands outside the door he knows leads to Snape's private quarters, he takes out the arrow with Black's name on. Anger bubbles in his chest as he looks at it and the memory of his mother screaming as she dies only serves to make his decision firmer.

"Direct me to Sirius Black."

Only when he feels the prickle of cold across his skin does he realise the terrible decision he's made. He freezes in mid step, lifting his head to stare at the Dementors floating eerily along the boundaries of the school, then he turns and flies back to the castle, his vengeance momentarily forgotten as he thinks only that he needs to get as far away from the soul sucking monsters as possible.

Back inside the Entrance Hall, he looks down at the paper arrow, clenches his fist around it then lets it fall crumpled to the floor as he walks towards the dungeons. There's an empty, hollow sort of feeling in his stomach and he feels like he's failing his parents by not going after the person responsible for the deaths, but he can't get past the Dementors. He promises himself that if he ever gets the chance, he'll kill Sirius Black himself.

* * *

Lupin keeps Harry behind after their first Defence class of the new term to tell him he's still willing to try and teach Harry the Patronus charm if he wants.

"Thanks, professor, but it's really not necessary."

"If you're sure. You were so confident you could do it the first time we spoke."

Harry shrugs. "Yeah, well, y'know. Teenagers are cocky like that. Think we can do anything."

Lupin doesn't look convinced, but as he can hardly force Harry to take extra lessons he lets him go, frowning after him. He hasn't missed the way Harry is distracted throughout the entire class, not offering answers as he normally does and spending much of the lesson staring almost angrily out the window.

Slytherin only narrowly defeat Hufflepuff in their Quidditch match on the fifteenth, which takes them out of the running for the Quidditch Cup and leaves Gryffindor almost guaranteed to win.

At the end of January, half the school is there to witness when Hermione and Ron Weasley get into a duel in the Entrance Hall, but no one's entirely sure what it's about. When the teachers have stepped in and they've both been given a week of detentions, Harry pushes through the crowd to catch up with Neville. Hermione's already stormed off.

"What was that about?"

"Hermione's cat Crookshanks ate Scabbers so Ron tried to hex Crookshanks."

"Ate who?"

"Ron's rat, Scabbers."

"Well what does he expect, owning a rat? We're not even allowed them, are we? My letter said cat, owl, or toad."

Neville shrugs. "He's had it three years and apparently his brother Percy had it before him. Anyway, I better catch up with Hermione, although she's probably buried in books again. I'll see you later."

A few days later, Gryffindor wipe the pitch with Ravenclaw in their match, securing them the Quidditch Cup even without their last match. The same evening, Black breaks into Gryffindor tower.

When Harry hears about it, he's so furious he can't even find it in him to feel bad for Neville—who's in trouble for writing down the passwords that enable Black to get into the tower—even when Neville goes running from the Great Hall with a Howler from his grandmother, much to the amusement of most of Slytherin. Malfoy, Flint, and the rest of the Quidditch team laugh particularly loudly, desperate for any reason to humiliate the Gryffindors now that they're going to win the Quidditch Cup. But Harry can't make himself care. Black was in the castle, close enough that Harry could have got to him, and he got away again.

He makes another tracking arrow the afternoon after Black's break in. This time it takes him in the opposite direction, towards the Forbidden Forest. When he reaches the edge, he stops, wondering if he should carry on or not. He doesn't know how far the Dementors are set up, whether they're just at the gates and boundary of the grounds or if they're in or above the forest as well. It'd make sense, he thinks, even if the forest is supposed to be filled with all manner of dangerous creatures that'd get to Black before he reached the school grounds.

He turns away. It's too risky to go in when there could be Dementors there, but he does get an idea.

Harry knows he has to test it again, before he tries it on Black, so he makes a tracking arrow for Tyler, writing his name in the arrowhead and then in the shaft he writes: 000 feet.

"Direct me to Tyler Lyle. Show me the distance to Tyler Lyle."

The arrow spins in his hand but the number remains at 000. He tries several different phrasings and words, but the numbers don't change and he throws it down in annoyance, then picks it up and burns it because he doesn't need Tyler finding it lying around and wondering what he's up to.

The solution comes to Harry at breakfast on the morning of the next Hogsmeade weekend. He upsets his orange juice in his rush to get up from the table and run out the Great Hall after Neville and Hermione.

"Guys! Hold up!"

They pause, turning to face him. "You alright?" Hermione asks.

"You guys are going to Hogsmeade, right?"

"No."

Harry's face falls. "What? Why not?"

"I'm not allowed," Neville says morosely. "Since Black broke in..."

"I don't really need anything, so I said I'd stay and keep him company," Hermione adds. "Why?"

"I need some Interactive Ink _really_ badly. Please can you go and get me some? I'll give you the money for it and I'll keep Neville company."

"What do you need it so urgently for?"

"Just a project I'm working on. I'll pay you for going if you want."

"I don't mind," Neville says.

"Please, Hermione."

"Alright. I need to go back to Gryffindor for my cloak though."

Harry goes back to Slytherin to grab some money from his trunk then meets Hermione back in the Entrance Hall. When she's gone—now with a shopping list that includes the ink, a quill, and several varieties of sweets—Harry and Neville head out to take a walk around the lake, chatting and catching up. Neville's worried about Hermione; she's taking every available class this year and the strain of the work is finally getting to her. Apparently she spends every evening sat in the common room surrounded by books and snapping sharply at anyone who distracts her.

"I've tried convincing her to drop some classes—she says she doesn't really like Divination and she doesn't need to take Muggle Studies—but you know what she's like. She insists she's fine."

"She probably won't admit she can't handle it until she collapses from overworking or something."

"Exactly and I don't want that to happen, but I don't know what to do."

Unfortunately Harry doesn't have any suggestions for him either.

Hermione's back within a couple of hours and she finds them sitting by the lake still.

"Hermione, you're brilliant and I owe you one. Thank you."

She smiles but it's strained. Harry wonders how he hasn't noticed before that she's got dark shadows under her eyes.

"Hermione, you alright?" he asks her. "Neville says you're getting kind of overwhelmed from all your work."

She tuts. "I'm fine, really. I do have a lot of work but it's nothing I can't handle. Honestly."

Hermione and Neville head off to Gryffindor and Harry returns to Slytherin. He sits on his bed in the dorm, curtains pulled shut, and makes another tracking arrow for Tyler, scribbling his name and 000 feet on it with the Interactive Ink. This time when he orders it to direct him to Tyler, the numbers change to read 021, and he lets out a delighted laugh. He pushes his curtains aside and climbs off the bed, heading out the dorm and into the common room, watching the number drop to 20... 16... 9... until he stands right next to Tyler, who's focused intently on a game of chess with Tabitha Sinclair, and the numbers read 000 again.

"Can you move? You're standing in my light."

"Sorry," he apologises, heading back to the dorm and watching the number on the arrow increase again.

He makes one for Black and for Hermione, just to double check that it does work, and Hermione's arrow leads him all the way up to the library, the numbers steadily dropping. The number on Black's arrow drops and rises by a few of digits and Harry assumes that he's stationary or at least confined to a small space and it's Harry's movements that are affecting the number. As he's at the library, he finds a copy of _Hogwarts: A History_ and finds out how large the school grounds are. Afterwards, he adds an extra digit to Black's arrow, as well as a couple of decimal places, just for added accuracy.

He carries it in his pocket at all times over the next few months and checks it every few hours, but Black stays well away from the castle now, presumably realising that it's too risky to try and break in so soon after his last attempt.

"You're never going to believe what Hermione did."

Harry shoves the arrow into his pocket and turns to Neville. The two of them are standing in a fourth floor corridor, just before lunch one day in March. "What?"

"She walked out of Divination. In the middle of class!"

"What?" Harry says again. "Hermione? _Our_ Hermione?"

Neville grins. "I know."

"Why?"

"Professor Trelawney's been predicting my death all year—don't worry, McGonagall says she always predicts someone's death—and Hermione's always said Divination was a load of rubbish ever since our first class. She finally got sick of it, walked right out."

"Blimey," Harry says, impressed. "Go Hermione."

In the Easter holidays the second years finally get to pick their subjects for third year. Harry is the only one who doesn't spend ages worrying over his choices; he already knows he wants to take Arithmancy and Ancient Runes because he wants something challenging. He previously wanted to take Care of Magical Creatures as well, because it'll be fun to work with animals, but not now that Hagrid's teaching it. Tyler, after a few days, eventually resorts to 'Ip dip sky blue, who's it not you' to decide; Cid chooses Care of Magical Creatures then writes to both his parents for advice on a second subject before picking Divination because his mother tells him not to; Jia agonises over her choices, changing her mind every day until the very last minute.

* * *

Lupin catches Fred and George putting Impervius Spells on the third floor toilets. The Marauders Map falls from Fred's pocket as he leaves the bathroom and even deactivated Lupin's seen it enough times to recognise it instantly. By the time the twins realise they've lost it, Lupin's already moved on.

They seek him out in his office a few days later.

"Sir, the other day when you caught us—"

"—improving the boys toilets—"

"—I dropped a bit of parchment. Did you notice it by any chance?"

"I did find a piece near that bathroom," Lupin says with a faintly confused expression, "but it was old and blank so I used it for notes then threw it in the fire when I was done."

The horrified expressions on the twins' faces are enough to make Lupin's cheek muscles hurt with the effort it takes to not laugh at them. He opens his desk drawer and pulls out the Map and George slumps with relief while Fred lets out a sigh.

"I'm well aware of what this map is, boys, and in all seriousness, you should have handed it in after Sirius Black first broke into the castle, and I'm astounded that you didn't do so when your own brother was put in danger the last time someone left information lying around the castle. I'm sure you understand I cannot give this back."

Lupin doesn't know what he's hoping for in the times he takes out the map and watches it. He's not sure if he wants to see his old friend's name or not. He doesn't know what he'll do if he does. He hasn't turned on Sirius yet by informing Dumbledore about him, but if he sees Sirius' name on the map, if he knows he's inside the school... he honestly doesn't know if he'll go to Dumbledore or hunt down Sirius himself.

* * *

Harry's heart leaps when he checks the tracking arrow on the ninth of April and the distance marker reads 0987.24 meters—within the boundaries of the school

It's the last Saturday before the new term and just after lunch. Harry's in his dorm but he leaps up, ignoring Tyler's look of surprise and Cid asking where he's going as he rushes out the dorm, through the common room and into the corridor. He races up to the Entrance Hall then pauses, checking the arrow, before heading out onto the grounds.

He makes himself invisible as he leaves the castle; he wants to be able to sneak up on Black. But as he follows the arrow towards the Forbidden Forest and the numbers get smaller and smaller, he wonders if it's broken. It's a sunny afternoon and there are plenty of students milling about the grounds, enjoying the first good weather of the season. The Hufflepuff Quidditch team are practising on the pitch and if the arrow's correct, Black is just beyond the edge of the forest, close enough to be seen if someone passes by.

When he sees the dog, half hidden under a bush as it watches the Hufflepuff team, he pauses but doesn't think much of it. It could easily be a stray from Hogsmeade or someone's dog that's run off, but then he realises the tracking arrow is pointing at the dog. At first he think's something's gone wrong with his magic, that the arrow's definitely malfunctioning, and then it all clicks into place. He's read about Animagi—has thought about trying it himself—and it makes sense. Everyone's looking for a convict, not a dog, and if the Dementors don't affect animals it would explain how Black escaped Azkaban.

He waits until the dog wriggles out from under the bush and turns to head further into the forest then pounces. The dog yelps as Harry wraps his arms around its neck, clinging tightly to hold on as it struggles to get out of his grip.

"I know who you are," Harry says, which makes the dog fight harder. "I'm going to kill you for betraying my parents. Be still!"

The dog freezes but whimpers, making panicked little noises. Harry lets go then spins as he hears a crack of twigs snapping.

"Who's here? C'mon now, yer know students ain't meant ter be in the forest. Out with yer."

Harry presses a hand to the dog and it turns into a small rubber ball. He grabs it and keeps himself hidden and silent as he creeps out the forest before Hagrid comes across him.

He doesn't make himself visible until he's back at the castle, at which point he stops in the middle of the Entrance Hall and wonders what the hell he's doing. He's got a ball in his pocket that's really a dog who might very well be Sirius Black, mass murderer and escaped convict. It's absurd and a manic giggle escapes him. Before he knows it, he's leant against the wall, bent over and clutching at his stomach as he laughs.

A little while later Harry wipes tears from his face and tries to ignore the twist in his gut as the humour of situation fades and he realises that he has no idea what he's supposed to do now.

He goes to the Room of Requirement. It provides him with cage in the middle of an otherwise empty room and he puts the ball inside it, locks the cage and the room, casts a Silencing Charm, and then points his wand at the ball.

" _Finite Incantatem_."

The ball turns back into the dog, which turns into a slightly dazed Sirius Black, lying in a heap on the floor. Harry inhales sharply, because until then, he never really believed it.


	20. Chapter 20

"Who are you?" Black croaks in a voice hoarse from disuse, looking at Harry through the bars of the cage. "Where am I?"

"My name's Harry Evans, but you probably know me better as Harry Potter."

He lets his scar show and Black scrambles right up to the bars, pressing his face forward to stare at Harry. "Harry? That's really you?"

"Yes, and now I'm going to kill you for betraying my parents."

"I didn't betray them, Harry."

Harry jerks his hand and the bars crackle with electricity. Black yelps painfully, jerking away from them.

"Don't you lie to me. You killed them!"

"I did," Black says, but not gloatingly, not boasting and prideful, just a sad statement of admittance. "I got them killed, but I swear on their graves that I never betrayed them. I wouldn't do that to Lily and James. Let me explain. Five minutes, Harry. That's all I ask. Five minutes."

Harry gives him that, and when Black finishes talking all he asks is, "Can you prove it?"

He listened, but he doesn't believe it. Why should he? It sounds like the perfect story to get him to trust Black, leaving him open to the same betrayal his parents suffered.

"Do you really think I'd have spent twelve years in Azkaban if I could prove it?" Black replies, which is a perfectly viable point, but doesn't help him convince Harry. "I need to catch the rat."

"Which you think belongs to Ron Weasley."

Black nods. "Can you help me catch it?"

"Weasley's rat is dead. Crookshanks ate him, so even if you're telling the truth, you can't prove it."

"He's not dead. The cat didn't eat him. Pettigrew faked his death again."

"How would you know?"

"I talked to the cat," Black says like that explains everything. When Harry stares at him, Black adds, "When I transform, I can communicate with other animals. Some of them."

"Uh huh."

"Harry, help me find the rat. Help me prove my innocence."

It won't hurt, not really. If he doesn't find the rat, it would prove, beyond a doubt, that Black is guilty and deserves to die. If he does find the rat, he'll kill Pettigrew instead and Black will be free to go.

"If he's really alive, I can find him, but I need to go back to my dorm to do it."

"Let me out. I'll go back to the forest, wait there for you."

Harry shakes his head. "I'm not letting you out of my sight. I'll turn you back into a ball again and take you with me."

"That's how you got me in here?"

"Yeah, and if you're lying, I'll turn you into a stone and throw you into the lake."

"Definitely Lily's son," Black says with a ghost of a smile. Harry narrows his eyes, flicks his hand, and Black's gone, replaced by a red rubber ball. It flies out the cage and into Harry's hand and he makes sure his scar is hidden again before leaving the room.

* * *

Lupin notices them on the map just as they reach Slytherin house, which he checks periodically just to keep an eye on Harry, and any thoughts of taking on Sirius himself flee. If he'd been alone then maybe, but not when Sirius is so close to Harry that their names overlap. Lupin might not have been as close to Lily and James in the last few years as Sirius and Peter were—something that saddens him immensely—but he's the only one left that can keep an eye out for the boy.

Dumbledore looks only mildly surprised when Lupin floos into his office, but he quickly turns serious when Lupin shows him the map and explains the situation.

McGonagall's marking third year essays when Dumbledore's voice calls through her floo, "Minerva, meet me in Severus' office immediately please."

Snape scowls when Dumbledore floos into his office without warning and it deepens when Lupin follows, but when McGonagall appears as well, he gets to his feet. "What—"

"Severus, Harry is in danger. We need to get to Slytherin immediately."

* * *

As always, Harry has to test it first. He cuts out two tracking arrows, writes Pettigrew's name on one and on the other he puts _Lily Potter_. He hesitates before he casts the spell. There's a tiny part of him that's hoping it'll respond, that the arrow will turn and point and the numbers will change. He tries to ignore it, but he's still a little disappointed when the arrow sits in his hand, perfectly still, and the numbers read only 0000.

Pettigrew's spins and points to the door. The number reads 987.35 feet.

He looks up when McGonagall's voice echoes through the school.

" _All staff and students will go immediately to the Great Hall. All staff and students to the Great Hall immediately please._ "

He curses, stuffs the tracking arrow in his pocket and yanks his bed curtains open. Orion and Stuart are in the room as well and look as confused as he is as they head for the door, but when they open it Snape stands on the other side.

"Out," he orders them then flicks his eyes to Harry. "Not you."

Harry's gut twists as Snape, McGonagall, Dumbledore, and Lupin file into the room. Lupin's got a bit of parchment in his hands that he looks at then looks to Harry then back at the parchment, frowning.

"He should be in here."

"Check under the beds," Dumbledore says, standing guard in front of the door.

"What's going on?" Harry asks as Snape and Lupin start looking under their beds.

"Harry, have you met a black dog today?" Dumbledore asks gently, and Harry feels the blood drain from his face. "Ah, I think that's a yes."

"Did he hurt you?" McGonagall asks, approaching Harry cautiously. "It's alright, Harry, you can tell us what happened."

"How did you know?"

"This map," Lupin answers, frowning at his bit of parchment. "But... it may not be working right, Albus."

"I think it's working just fine, Remus," Dumbledore says quietly without taking his gaze from Harry. "Harry, if Black's threatening you, we'll keep you safe. Just reveal him to us."

"Then what?"

"We'll hand him over to the Dementors like he deserves," Snape answers, and Harry thinks he looks almost eager at the thought.

"He didn't do it."

"Do what?"

"He didn't—" He glances at Lupin, the only one who doesn't know who he is, but Black said he was a friend of Harry's parents so he carries on. "He didn't betray my parents. It wasn't him that killed those Muggles."

"We should check him for a Confounding Charm," Snape says. "Possibly even the Imperius."

"I'm not cursed! He didn't do it; it was Peter Pettigrew."

"Harry, Peter Pettigrew's dead," Lupin says. Harry pulls the tracking arrow out of his pocket.

"He's not and I can prove it."

"That means nothing," Snape says when Harry shows them the tracking arrow. "That could merely direct us to what's left of his dead body."

Instead of arguing with him, Harry grabs the arrow with Lily's name on it that still sits beside his bed and shows him that it's unresponsive. Snape stares at it and says nothing.

"Harry, those numbers—that's how far away Peter is?" Lupin asks, and Harry nods. "That distance is within the school grounds. If he's alive, the map should show him."

Harry peers at the piece of parchment, watching Lupin move it to show the edge of the school, which is where Pettigrew should be.

"Harry, where is Black?" Dumbledore asks.

"I'll reveal him when we've caught Pettigrew," Harry says without looking up. "I don't trust you not to hand him over. Where can I get one of these?"

Lupin smiles and doesn't answer.

Pettigrew's in Hagrid's hut. Dumbledore and McGonagall try to insist Harry joins the rest of the students in the Great Hall, but Lupin takes Harry's side and says he ought to come with them.

"It's his parents that died that night. He deserves to know the truth more than anyone."

"Severus?" McGonagall asks. "You're his... Head of House."

Dumbledore notices the slight pause and glances at her but doesn't mention it. Snape shifts his gaze from McGonagall to Harry then to Lupin before finally looking at Dumbledore.

"I expect if we tried to stop him he'd only creep out after us. We might as well keep him in sight."

McGonagall leaves them to go to the Great Hall. Flitwick and Sprout have already been informed of the situation and told the students and the rest of the staff, and they now sit at their tables, chattering nervously. They fall quiet when she enters.

"Have you caught him?" calls Lisa Patterson, the Head Girl.

"Not yet. Please remain at your tables," she orders as she hurries up to the staff table. "Is everyone here? No one's missing?"

"All except Harry Evans," Flitwick tells her.

"He's with Severus; he's fine."

"Shouldn't we all be looking for Black?" Sprout asks and McGonagall shakes her head.

"He's cornered. The fewer people the better. For now we'll remain here."

Meanwhile the others approach Hagrid's hut. "If we all go in at once, Pettigrew will flee," Snape points out.

"So charm the hut," Harry says. "Trap him inside."

Dumbledore draws his wand and does exactly that. "Severus, Remus, stay here. Harry, with me."

The tracking arrow points Harry to a milk jug. He reaches inside for the rat, who squirms furiously to get out of his grip until he Harry petrifies him. He holds the rat up by his tail, noticing the missing toe that Black said he would have.

"Put him on the floor," Dumbledore says. "If he's an Animagus, there's a spell that will force him to return to his human form."

Harry sets the rat down and Dumbledore performs the spell. Pettigrew is short, rat-nosed, balding, and still petrified. Harry hates him on sight.

He takes out the ball from his pocket and tosses it down. Black hits the floor with a grunt, jerks his head up to look around, inhales sharply at the sight of Dumbledore then growls almost dog-like when he sees Pettigrew and lunges at him, bony hands wrapping around Pettigrew's neck. Harry flicks his hand and unpetrifies Pettigrew, who gags and squirms suddenly under the weight of Black's body.

"Sirius!" Dumbledore yells, but Black's completely focused on Pettigrew. Dumbledore points his wand, there's a bang, and Black's thrown backwards.

Pettigrew continues to choke, squirming on the floor, hands scrabbling at his neck. Harry's gaze is fixed on him. Dumbledore throws a Stunning Spell at Harry but it bounces harmlessly off a shield Harry conjures without even glancing up. The door crashes open and Lupin and Snape charge in. Lupin goes straight to Black's side. Snape stalks past the choking man, standing in front of Harry and grabbing his shoulders.

"Stop it."

"He deserves this!" Harry yells and Snape's thrown back, crashing into Hagrid's table and knocking tea cups to the floor.

Then a blond man appears in front of Harry, removing his dark green cloak and twirling it around to settle, inside out, on Harry's shoulders, and Pettigrew stops choking.

Pettigrew lies on the floor, coughing and gasping for breath. Lupin points a wand at him, conjuring ropes to bind him, then turns his wand on the stranger. Dumbledore does the same and so does Snape when he pushes himself off the table.

"You!" Harry and Black cry simultaneously.

Dumbledore, Snape, and Lupin look baffled. Black and Harry glance at each other then back at the stranger, who shifts to stand beside Harry, grinning and lifting a hand to tap two fingers to his head in a salute.

"Hello, all. I'm the Assistant."

"What have you done to me?" Harry asks in a slightly panicked voice, reaching up to remove the cloak around his shoulders. The inside—now the outside—is light green with darker runes. The Assistant steps behind him and wraps his arms around Harry to grab his hands and hold him in place.

"Magic suppression runes. Help with shielding on the outside, but make a man powerless on the inside."

"Let go of me! Take it off!"

"And let you become a murderer at thirteen years old? I don't think so."

"He deserves it!"

"Oh, I'm not arguing with you, but that doesn't mean you should become a murderer, not to mention if you kill him now, there's no one to verify his story and clear your godfather's name." He pauses, then adds, "You are aware he's your godfather, aren't you?"

"Who are you?" Dumbledore asks and there's a warning tone of danger in the question.

"Like I said, I'm the Assistant. I'm not here to hurt anyone."

"You know him?" Lupin asks Black.

"I've been hiding in a cave in the mountain at the end of Hogsmeade. He was there."

"Always willing to let criminal dogs hang out in my cave," the Assistant says. "I'm nice like that."

"You knew that was me?"

"Course I knew. I know everything."

"The Assistant..." Dumbledore murmurs, frowning, then looks at Harry. "This is the man who told you Professor Quirrell was going after the Philosopher's Stone?"

Harry nods, finally giving up trying to get out of the Assistant's grip.

"Oh, did you save it?" the Assistant asks Harry. "I meant to find out what happened, but there was this girl, y'know..."

"Who are you?" Snape asks. "And don't say the Assistant. What's your name? What are you doing here?"

"I followed Sirius. Have been since he broke into Gryffindor back in February. Never too sure when all this will come to a head, y'know? So I tag after him, do what I have to if need be. Not the most exciting course, this time, but you can't always have it that way, can you? Anyway, I'll stick around until littl'un here has calmed down enough not to kill the rat over there."

Dumbledore decides they all need to go back to his office. They're an odd group—Dumbledore and Lupin leading with Pettigrew, wrists bound, walking between them at wand point; Harry following them, de-cloaked after promising he won't harm Pettigrew and glaring at Pettigrew's back, while the Assistant walks on his left and Black as Padfoot trots along at his right; and Snape follows them all, distrustful eyes flicking between Black, the Assistant, and Pettigrew.

Snape breaks off to slip into the Great Hall when they reach the castle. The students watch in silence as he moves up to the staff table. McGonagall stands and they face each other across it. Although Snape speaks quietly, the hall is so silent that everyone hears him anyway.

"We've got him."

His words are greeted with a thunderous cheer. Only McGonagall doesn't smile.

"Then it's true?" she asks quietly. "It wasn't Black?"

"It appears not," Snape tells her, and it pains him to say it.

* * *

In Dumbledore's office, Pettigrew stands nervously in front of Dumbledore's desk while the headmaster sits behind it. Harry stands to one side with Lupin and Black, and the Assistant drops into a chair, fingers linked behind his head with his legs stretched out in front of him and crossed at the ankles. Pettigrew tries to claim he's innocent, that Black is still the traitor and he only faked his death to hide from him. No one believes him.

Harry leaves Dumbledore's office just as Snape and McGonagall get there.

"Dumbledore's calling the Minster for Magic," he tells them. "He said I didn't need to be there for it."

The two teachers reach the office just in time to hear the Assistant say, "Albus, I'm going to nip out of sight while Fudge comes."

"I still want to talk to you."

"I know. I'll still be here," he says, turning invisible, "just unseen."

Fudge is gobsmacked when he floos into Dumbledore's office to find not just Sirius Black but Peter Pettigrew as well. He listens to the story sceptically and when Pettigrew protests his innocence, he looks like he believes it.

"Well, we'll take them both back to the Ministry," he says, gesturing to Shacklebolt and Dawlish, the two Aurors he brought with him, "and do a proper interrogation to get behind all this mess."

"You mean you'll hand me to the Dementors and let that rat go free," Black croaks. "You haven't believed a word we've said."

Fudge puffs himself up imperiously. "Why should I believe the words of a convicted criminal?"

Black gives a bark of laughter. "Convicted? Don't you need a trial for that? I was just thrown in a cell and left to rot."

"Surely my word is good enough, Cornelius?" Dumbledore says quietly and Fudge splutters for a moment before eventually saying, "All due respect, Dumbledore, but you're believing the words of a known criminal. Now you can believe what you will, but the fact of the matter is there's no proof Black's story is true and this poor man deserves a chance to prove his innocence."

Pettigrew nods enthusiastically. Lupin has to grab Black's arm to stop him doing anything rash. Snape's lip curls. McGonagall huffs. Dumbledore merely looks disappointed.

"Minister, if I may," Snape says silkily, "I am more than willing to brew Veritaserum to give to both men so that we might uncover the truth of this matter."

"Severus Snape, isn't it? Well, thank you for the offer, but I can hardly trust a Hogwarts staff member to be unbiased in this issue and Veritaserum cannot be use without the accused's consent."

"I consent," Black says.

"And you can rest assured, Minister, I would like nothing more than to see Sirius Black given the Dementor's Kiss, but I would never tarnish my professional pride by brewing a doctored potion so that I might achieve my own ends."

Fudge and his Aurors are the only ones in the room who believe that.

"I still cannot allow non-Ministry personal to provide—"

"Actually," Dumbledore interrupts, "you can if the accused party or parties request a Potions Master unaffiliated with the Ministry."

"Which I do," Black says. Fudge looks furious.

"We will still need to take them back to the Ministry for the interrogation."

"Why?" Dumbledore asks lightly. "We have the Minster of Magic, two Aurors in an official capacity, the Chief Wizard of the Wizengamot, the accused, our Potions Master, and two witnesses," he says, gesturing to McGonagall and Lupin.

"One witness," Fudge sneers. "A werewolf has no standing as a witness."

"Then I will gladly call another of my staff members," Dumbledore replies with a warning glance at Black, who bristles at Fudge's words, offended on Lupin's behalf. "Or you may find a second witness of your own. Severus, how long will it take you to brew the Veritaserum?"

"I have some already brewed."

"There you have it, Cornelius. So if you'd like to find a second witness..."

Realising he's cornered, Fudge nods stiffly.

"NO!"

Pettigrew's cry is followed by the pop of an Animagus transformation and a light thud as the ropes around his wrists drop to the floor. But the rat doesn't get very far—he flies off the floor, squealing in protest as he hovers in mid-air, legs still moving in a useless attempt to escape.

Dumbledore flicks his gaze to the corner where the Assistant's voice last came from then looks calmly at Fudge. "Will you still require an interrogation or is Pettigrew's attempt to flee enough for a conviction?"

* * *

Harry goes to the library where he's glad to find Hermione and Neville. Hermione's surrounded by books and busy working on an essay when he gets there, but she pushes them aside when he joins them.

"Are you alright? Where have you been? The Slytherins were saying you'd been kidnapped by Sirius Black."

Harry laughs. "I wasn't kidnapped. It was the other way around actually. I've got one hell of a story to tell you..."

* * *

When Pettigrew is forced to turn back, he breaks down, begging for mercy and claiming he only betrayed the Potters because he was scared. It doesn't help him. Fudge is forced to give Black a complete pardon, effective immediately, although he's advised to lay low until the news is distributed. The words make him stagger and drop into a chair, shaking with relief and hardly able to believe that he's actually free. McGonagall smiles and Snape leaves with an unhappy scowl. Dumbledore insists that the Dementors be removed from the school immediately.

"You may stay in the castle until you're ready to face the public," Dumbledore tells Black. "I'm sure Remus won't mind a dog accompanying him to his classes."

Lupin shakes his head, a happy smile on his face. "He can stay in my rooms. If you don't mind, that is, Sirius?"

Black looks up at him. "Mind? Course I don't mind, you fool," he says, getting to his feet again to kiss Lupin soundly on the lips. When they break apart, Lupin blushes redder than a cooked lobster while Black grins. Dumbledore beams.

"Excellent. Well I'm sure you'd like to get a wash, a bit of food, and some rest, so feel free to head off. I need to have a chat with the Assistant, if you'll show yourself please."

There's no response.

* * *

Fudge, Shacklebolt, and Dawlish are attacked as they escort Pettigrew to the Dementors. A blond man in a dark green cloak appears from nowhere, introducing himself as the Assistant before overpowering the Minister and the two Aurors with ease and allowing Pettigrew to escape unscathed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That Assistant, eh? What a bastard...
> 
> Also, because I can predict such accusations coming: although the Assistant appears to exist just to forward certain plot points, he does take on a much larger role after the GOF storyline.


	21. Chapter 21

Much that he wants to, Fudge has no chance to repeal Sirius' freedom, having several witness to his declaration, two of whom are Aurors. By Monday it's all over the _Daily Prophet_. Sirius is still struggling to believe it. Sitting in Lupin's rooms, he sets the paper aside and looks to the other man.

"So what's the deal with Harry, Moony?"

"That's a broad question, Padfoot. Care to narrow it down a little?"

"Well his name, for one. Why Evans and not Potter?"

"After Lily and James died, he was put with Lily's sister, Petunia."

"I know. Hagrid told me when he took him from the house after it happened. She didn't rename him, did she?"

"No, that was Harry's choice. Dumbledore told me a burglar broke into the house when he was about seven and attacked him and Petunia's husband. You noticed his eye? That was because of that. Afterwards he ran away, scared. He changed his name and spent three years living on the streets. No one could find him until he turned up at Hogwarts. Apparently he spent a year hiding in the school before Dumbledore found out and made him an official student, which is why he's a year behind what he should be."

"Seems to me he should be a year ahead. That kid's got power, Moony."

"I didn't know anything about that until yesterday. He picks up spellwork in classes quickly enough but I didn't think anything of it until now."

"Guess it's not surprising. Knew he had to be special somehow to defeat Voldemort."

That afternoon, Dumbledore calls Sirius into his office to discuss the Assistant, hoping to find out whatever he can about the mysterious man, but Sirius has little that's helpful.

"He lives in a cave in the mountain just past the village. I can show you it but he's probably long gone by now. He didn't talk much about himself though. I don't know his real name or where he comes from or anything like that. But you could ask around the village; if he was telling the truth he slept with every woman he could, bought a few back to the cave actually..." He trails off, a gleam in his eye. Dumbledore clears his throat, his own eyes twinkling, and Sirius coughs, not meeting his gaze.

"Yeah, anyway, they might know something. Or you might find _the_ girl. He never mentioned a name," Sirius elaborates at Dumbledore's questioning look. "But I got the impression he was sleeping around to try and forget this bird. Said something about her being in love with an older bloke and he never had a chance, but he loved her anyway."

* * *

A week later Harry sits in an armchair in the sitting room of Lupin's quarters, Sirius and Lupin on the sofa opposite him.

"So. You're my godson. I thought you'd look more like James."

Remus stares intently at his tea as he stirs it. Harry squirms uncomfortably.

"But anyway. I wanted to invite you to come and live with us in the summer—"

"Sirius!"

"—but Remus said we ought to get to know each other first."

"I'd like to come live with you," Harry says and both men look surprised.

"You would?" Sirius says. Harry nods.

"I don't have anywhere else to live. My mum and dad chose you for my godfather, which means they wanted you to look after me if anything happened, right?"

"What about your aunt and uncle?" Lupin asks. Harry's face darkens and he looks down at the cup of tea in his hands.

"When I was seven my uncle beat me up so bad I ended up in the hospital. He's the reason I'm half blind and have seizures."

Lupin puts his tea down on the coffee table. "Dumbledore told me a burglar did that."

"Dumbledore's a stinky, rotten liar," Harry declares, and Sirius' lips quirk, but his amusement doesn't last. "He knew it was my uncle and he still made me go back."

"He did WHAT?"

Lupin has to physically restrain Sirius from storming out his quarters and up to Dumbledore's office. Sirius might be free but the students would still panic if they saw him tearing through the castle in a fury.

"I'll kill him. What the hell was he thinking? You never should have been put with them in the first place. Dumbledore _knew_ Lily's sister hated magic, we all did. He'd better have a damn good explanation for doing this. James must be rolling in his grave..."

Harry quite enjoys watching Sirius pace, ranting angrily on his behalf. It makes him feel surer of saying he wants to move in with him. While it's true he's desperate for somewhere permanent to live, it doesn't mean he fully trusts Sirius. He's still almost a stranger to Harry, someone Harry was almost willing to kill only a week ago.

His attack on Pettigrew was one thing, done in anger and fury, and afterwards when the adrenaline and shock faded, he found himself shaking and stunned at what he nearly did. He could have killed Sirius plenty of times between when he caught him and when he got to Slytherin house—he could have turned him into a stone and tossed him into the lake so he sank and drowned when the spell wore off, or turned him into a flower and torn him apart, or just Wished him dead, but he hadn't and when he thinks about it, he doesn't think he really could have either.

When Sirius' rant is past, Harry asks, "Will you teach me how to become an Animagus?"

Sirius grins. "Absolutely! You should find it easy enough, given your power."

Lupin frowns suddenly. "Harry, when you said you didn't want Patronus lessons anymore, I assumed it was because you'd failed it; was I wrong?"

Harry drops his gaze, smile fading and hands fiddling with the edge of his robes. "No," he mutters.

"That's alright, we'll teach you that too," Sirius says.

"You don't need to do that. The Dementors are gone now; I don't need to know it."

"It's an important spell, kid, you should know it."

"No, really, I don't—"

"It's alright," Lupin interrupts gently. "You can learn it another time. You can focus on the Animagus transfiguration for now. It's more exciting anyway."

Harry shoots him a grateful smile.

Despite Lupin's words, the exciting part of becoming an Animagus doesn't happen until he actually starts learning to transform himself, which he can't do until he's found out his inner animal, which requires a great deal of meditation. Not that he really minds. He hasn't meditated since making his deal, and sitting in quiet with his eyes shut and letting his mind relax, he wonders why he hasn't. It makes him feel good and helps relieve some of his stress, which, he muses, would probably help with his seizures too.

Sirius tells him he's supposed to meditate until he falls into a spirit trance which will make him feel like he's leaving his body and moving into that of his Animagus form, giving him a chance to familiarise himself with it, after which he'll have to research the animal and it's biology so he can know what to expect when he does the transformation. But although Harry's able to slip into a meditative trance, he doesn't experience anything like an out of body experience.

An hour later when he finds himself on the floor of an empty corridor with Draco Malfoy bent over him and the taste of vomit in his mouth, he wonders if this is what he gets for daring to think he could reduce his seizures anymore than what his potion does.

"Alright there, Evans?"

"Fine," he mutters, pushing himself up, then looking surprised when Malfoy takes a handkerchief from his pocket and holds it out.

"For your mouth. Do you need to go to the Hospital Wing? I'll walk you up."

Harry gets to his feet and takes the handkerchief, wiping saliva and specks of vomits from his mouth. "I'm fine. Why are you being nice to me?"

"I'm always nice."

"No, you're not. You're an arsehole."

Malfoy looks offended. "Just because we have some differences of opinion doesn't—"

"Differences of opinion? That's how you describe being a racist prick?"

The offence turns to annoyance. "I could have just left you here to choke on your own puke, you know. I didn't have to stick around and clean up your mess."

He scowls, cheeks going red, and mutters a thanks. Malfoy accepts it with a nod.

"Were you heading back to the common room? Come on then," he says when Harry nods, then when Harry looks at him questioningly he adds, "Your bracelet says you shouldn't be left alone afterwards."

"You mean my tacky bracelet?"

"It is tacky. Useful, but tacky. You could have at least brought a tasteful one."

"What do you care?"

"You're a Slytherin. We have a reputation to uphold."

"As fashionistas?"

Malfoy scowls. "As classy."

"Right, because Crabbe and Goyle are the epitome of classy."

Malfoy waves a dismissive hand. "The exception, not the rule. But you've got money so even as a half-blood you should be presenting yourself well."

"How do you know I've got money?"

"That trunk of yours wasn't cheap and I've seen you wearing some fairly decent robes. It's not hard to figure out."

Harry stops walking. "You tried to break into my trunk?"

"No."

"Liar. Why did you try and break into my stuff?"

Malfoy shrugs, turning to the bit of wall that marked the entrance to Slytherin. "Serpent's tail. If you ever need fashion advice, feel free to ask me. I don't charge much."

Harry snorts, following him into the common room. He wasn't taking any kind of advice from Malfoy and he certainly wasn't paying for it.

* * *

"Morning, Evans."

Harry turns on the bench, looking at Malfoy. "Uh... morning."

"Sleep well?"

"Yeah, I guess. Why are you asking me that?"

"Merely being polite. Perhaps you should try it sometime. Enjoy your day."

Harry stares after him, thoroughly confused, then turns to Cid and Tyler.

"I think my hearing's going. Did he just tell me to enjoy my day?"

"Yes," Cid says, stabbing a hashbrown with his fork. "Maybe he wants to fuck you."

Harry gapes. Tyler frowns. "How did you get that from 'enjoy your day'?"

"Why else would he be nice to him?" he asks around a mouthful of food. "This is Malfoy we're talking about."

"What makes you think he's even into boys?"

Cid shrugs and swallows. "Why shouldn't he be?"

"Well, no reason, I guess. But don't people normally have a reason for thinking someone's gay before saying things like that? It's not like he's camp or anything."

"So? Just as much chance of him being gay as there is of him being straight."

"Yeah, but..."

"Is this some Muggle hang-up? Straight until proven otherwise or something like that?"

"What do you mean a 'Muggle hang-up'? I was raised by a wizard."

"But in a Muggle neighbourhood. I'm right, aren't I?"

"Well... yeah, I guess."

Cid shakes his head and takes a slice of bread to mop up the left over baked beans sauce on his plate. "Fucking Muggles. Crash course, you pair of half-wits, assumptions like that will get you hexed in the wizarding world. No one cares about your sexuality here. Also, Harry, shut your mouth, you're catching flies."

Harry snaps his mouth shut. "He does not want to have sex with me. He doesn't even like me."

"Doesn't have to like you to want to fuck you."

"We're thirteen!"

"You and him are nearly fourteen," Tyler points out.

Cid looks amused. "Are you saying you wouldn't have sex with someone right now if you had the chance just because we're not legally old enough?"

"Uh... I, um... I don't know."

"The answers no," Cid tells him. "You would have sex if you had the chance because sex is awesome."

"You don't know that."

"Course I do. Everyone knows that."

"Everyone says that. You've never done it though. Have you?"

"He wishes," Tyler says, and Cid scowls. "And we all know who with."

"Shut up," Cid snaps, but he glances down the table at where Tabitha sits with the other girls.

"Well hang on," Harry says when they're walking to Transfiguration later. "How is it that a bunch of people so obsessed with blood purity don't care about sexuality? What happened to continuing the blood lines and all that stuff?"

"Arranged marriages for producing heirs while keeping lovers on the side," Cid answers easily. "That's what people like the Malfoy and Devaux family would do. Others would just use adoption and surrogate mothers. It's really not a big deal; I don't know why Muggles would make an issue out of sexuality."

* * *

Lupin's not at breakfast on the sixth of June when Malfoy's eagle owl brings him a letter from home, which is probably a good thing.

"Lupin's a WEREWOLF?!"

By lunch, the whole school knows. Harry goes to visit Lupin in his office that afternoon and finds him packing up.

"Why do you have to leave just because everyone knows?"

"This time tomorrow, the owls will start arriving from parents... They will not want a werewolf teaching their children, Harry."

"But you're the best Defence professor we've ever had."

Lupin smiles but says nothing. Padfoot huffs and noses Harry's hand and he scratches him behind the ears.

"We'll see you in the summer," Lupin says when he's finished packing up. "Sirius will pick you up from the station when term's ended. You can spend the time normally in my classes meditating for the Animagus transformation."

Padfoot barks his agreement and Harry nods, giving him one last pat on the head before they both head off.

* * *

"Morning, Ev- ow! What the... why the hell is there a pin on the bench?"

Several people snigger. Harry continues to eat his breakfast, acting like Malfoy isn't even there.

"Did you do that?" Cid asks him.

"Why would I put a pin on the bench?"

"It's Malfoy," Tyler says as though that's reason enough. Harry glances at him.

"I'm not psychic. You think I can predict where that prat's going to sit?"

But every morning for the rest of the term, Malfoy would sit down and get stabbed by a pin, even when he carefully checks the bench beforehand.

* * *

At the end of the term, Harry spends half the journey from Hogwarts with Hermione and Neville, and that's when he finds out about her big secret.

"Did you know about this?" Harry asks Neville, who shakes his head, and Harry looks back at Hermione. "Why didn't you tell us you had a Time Turner all year?"

"McGonagall made me promise not to, but I've handed it in now. I've dropped Muggle Studies so I can have a normal schedule next year. It was driving me mad trying to get to all my classes like that."

"Can't believe you never told us," he mutters, but Hermione just smiles. He stays with them until mid afternoon, when he goes to find Cid and Tyler for the rest of the journey.

"Have fun at your aunt and uncle's this summer," Tyler says to Harry when the Hogwarts Express pulls into King's Cross station. "You can come visit again if you want."

"Thanks, but I'm not living with them anymore. I'm moving in with my godfather."

"You never mentioned you had a godfather."

"I only met him recently. He's been in jail for a few years."

"For what?"

"Murder, but he didn't do it."

"You're sure about that, right? I'd hate for you—"

"Merlin's fucking underpants!" Cid cries, looking out the carriage window. "Sirius Black's on the platform!"

Tyler whirls to gape at Harry, who just grins and grabs his trunk, dragging it out the compartment and off the train.

"You all set, kid?" Sirius greets him.

"Yep. How are we getting to your house? Where do you live?"

"In Gloucestershire, and we'll be taking my bike."

"A motorbike?"

Sirius grins. "Better than that. A _flying_ motor-"

"I'm so glad to see my dear wife's cousin walking free," interrupts a voice behind Sirius. Harry leans sideways to look around him and sees a tall, blond man with steel grey eyes and a sneer. By his side is Malfoy, but Harry doesn't need to see him to know that they're related.

"Lucius," Sirius says, turning to face him. "How is Narcissa? Still a stuck-up bitch?"

Lucius hardly reacts to the insult but Malfoy's face twists angrily. "Don't speak about my mother like that!"

"Calm down, Draco. The poor man spent twelve years in prison; he can hardly be blamed for forgetting basic manners."

Malfoy nods, but continues to glare at Sirius.

"And who's this young man? Surely he's not _yours_."

"I'm—"

"I'm looking after him as a favour to Dumbledore," Sirius interrupts, squeezing Harry's shoulder in a silent command not to correct him.

"I see. What do your parents think of you living with a former prison inmate?" Lucius asks Harry.

"They're dead," he says bluntly. "So they don't really care."

"Ah. My sincerest sympathies for your loss, Mr...?"

"Evans," he finishes, and Sirius' hand tightens on his shoulder. "Harry Evans."

Lucius' lips curl into a smile that makes goosebumps rise on Harry's skin and he holds out a hand. "Lucius Malfoy. It's a pleasure to meet you."

Harry shakes only because it'd be rude not to, but he doesn't return the sentiment.

"Have you met my son while you're at school?"

"He's a Slytherin as well, Father. A year below me."

"Excellent. Always a delight to meet a fellow snake," Lucius says, pretending he doesn't notice the way Sirius bristles at his words. "Might I ask how you know the infamous Mr Black? It seems odd to me that a man fresh out of prison would be asked to care for a child not related to him."

"Like he said, it's a favour to Dumbledore. I don't really know him, but it's him or my Muggle family."

"Ahh, I quite understand," Lucius says smoothly. "Well, we really must be off. It was good meeting you, Harry. Good day to you both."

"How did you end up in _Slytherin_?" Sirius asks as he shrinks Harry's trunk down to pocket-size before they head through the gate to Muggle London. "You're not a snake."

"It's where the sorting hat put me," Harry says defensively. "And there's nothing wrong with it. Not everyone's like Malfoy."

Sirius glances at him, some of the annoyance fading from his features. "Sorry. I didn't really think... well, I'm sure it's just fine."

"Why didn't you want me to say you're my godfather?" Harry asks, changing the topic.

"Malfoy knows I was friends with James. If he knew you're my godson, he'd likely make the right assumptions about who you really are."

"Is that why you almost broke my shoulder when I told him my name?"

"Sorry about that, but yeah. It shouldn't matter too much. He was a seventh year by the time we started at Hogwarts and Lily was a Gryffindor so he's not likely to remember her maiden name, especially when it's Potter that everyone thinks of when they think of her. You'll be fine. I wouldn't worry about it."

Harry thinks that'd be a lot more convincing if Sirius looked him in the eye when he says it.

Sirius' bike is _awesome_. They ride it through London but when they get out of the city Sirius turns off onto a small road, Harry Wishes them invisible, and Sirius flicks a switch, hits the throttle, and Harry whoops and clings tighter as they lift into the air.

Black Stag House is a reasonably-sized three bedroom place just outside of Coleford, right near the Forest of Dean. Sirius tells him that he owns a large house in London that used to belong to his parents, but he hated it growing up and he refuses to live there even now.

Harry gets his own room, much larger than the one he had at the Dursleys, and while he's unpacking Sirius picks up Kiwi from his trunk.

"You still have this?"

Harry's chest tightens. He wants to snatch her from him. Sirius might be his godfather but Harry still hardly knows him and Kiwi is _his_.

"You know Lily gave you this, your first Christmas," Sirius says, and Harry's chest is suddenly tight for completely different reasons. "You were barely bigger than it. You were such a tiny little baby."

He smiles wistfully at her for a moment then puts the bear back in Harry's trunk, gently placing her on top of everything else. "Remus is making Spaghetti Bolognese for dinner, should be ready in fifteen minutes."

Harry nods, not trusting himself to speak, and when Sirius has left the room he lunges over to the trunk and snatches Kiwi up, squeezing her tightly and hearing that soft female voice whisper, "I love you, Harry."

All the years he'd pretended it was his mother and now he knows it is. In that instant any connection Kiwi has to Snape vanishes. Kiwi came from his mum and she's the only person Harry wants the bear connected to.

Unlike dinner with the Dursleys, where Harry was always ignored, or with Snape, who rarely spoke while he ate, dinner with Sirius and Lupin is relaxed and filled with conversation. Lupin asks him about his classes and how he did in exams, and when they were nearly finished, Sirius asked about his Animagus preparations.

"Have you had any luck yet getting into a spirit trance?"

"No," Harry answers grumpily. "I've been trying. I read a couple of books in the library about it, but I can't seem to get there."

He's also pretty sure that trying is giving him more seizures, but he's not certain and he's not about to mention the possibility when it could be nothing.

"There's a potion you can try. It'll force you into the trance. You can always give that a go."

"Do you know how to make it?"

"Not off the top of my head, but we managed it in fifth year. I'm sure I can manage it now."

The potion takes a week to brew and when it's finished it's pale yellow and sickeningly sweet. Sirius says that it should pull him out of his body and put him in that of his inner animal, as meditating would only much faster and less smoothly. But within seconds of drinking it Harry feels like he's being crushed, like his body has suddenly become too small for his soul, or his soul too big for his body. He can't breathe, can't move, can barely think for the crushing pain consuming his entire being.

Sirius is startled when Harry starts seizing immediately after drinking the potion. Lupin stops him from trying to hold Harry down and keeps a hand on his arm as they wait for it to stop, but five minutes later it's still happening and Lupin calls for an emergency response healer.

"What the hell are you doing?!" Sirius cries when the healer takes a needle from her kit and her partner holds Harry's arm still so she can slide the needle into his vein.

"Sirius, it's fine. Calm down."

"Calm—Remus, they're sticking needles—"

"It's _fine_. It's just a way of getting the potion into him when he can't swallow it."

"We'll be portkeying him to the emergency ward. You can floo directly there and an orderly will be able to assist you; please bring a sample of the potion he took for analysis. Transporting in three, two, one..."


	22. Chapter 22

"What the hell have you two idiots done to him?"

Lupin frowns and Sirius scowls, getting to his feet as Snape approaches them. "What are you doing here? This is nothing to do with you."

Snape comes to a halt a few feet from them, folding his arms over his chest. "I'm his primary medical contact; the healers called me. What happened?"

"Why the hell are _you_ his medical contact?"

"Because Muggles aren't accepted and there was no one else to do it. _What. Happened?_ "

"He took a Spirit Trance Potion," Remus answers, cutting of Sirius from responding. "He started seizing immediately; it lasted for eleven minutes and they had to inject him with an anti-convulsant to stop it."

"And of course neither of you two morons thought to check whether the ingredients caused seizures or reacted badly with his regular medication."

"Harry checked them," Lupin says, coldness creeping into his voice. "He said they were all fine and that the potion wasn't listed as one he couldn't take."

"You made it yourself? Then you probably screwed it up," he snaps when Lupin nods. "This is why criminals and werewolves shouldn't be trusted with children."

Lupin has to grab Sirius' hand to stop him going for his wand and hexing Snape. "I don't see _you_ taking responsibility for him," Lupin says coolly and Snape's gaze narrows.

"Why would he? He'd probably try and poison him," Sirius growls. "I'm not letting him anywhere near my godson."

Snape smirks. "As I said, I'm his medical contact. All it takes is a word from me and _you'll_ be the one who's not allowed near him."

"You fuck-"

"Sirius, stop it. Don't rise to his bait. Just sit down."

"Moony—"

" _Sit down_."

Sirius scowls but drops back into the chair, folding his arms over his chest.

"Well, I guess we all know who the bitch in this relationship is," Snape drawls.

"Give it a rest, Severus," Lupin growls. Fortunately the attending healer came out of Harry's room then, cutting off any further reply.

"He's stable and seems to be recovering fine. I've done an EEG and forwarded the results to Healer Karpel. She'll take over from me when she's looked at them. For now, Harry just needs to rest, but you can go in and see him."

Sirius goes straight in, hardly even noticing that Lupin doesn't immediately follow him.

"So you won't tell him who you are but you'll make yourself his medical contact?"

Snape lifted his chin slightly. "He doesn't need to know and it's really no concern of yours, is it?"

"He hates you. Why would he agree to it?"

"As I said, it's no concern of yours."

Lupin nods. "Fine. But Sirius is his legal guardian now, not the Dursleys, and when that's confirmed he'll automatically become the primary medical contact."

Snape doesn't look pleased with that, but he says nothing.

Inside the room, Sirius sits a little nervously by Harry's bed. "You alright there, kid?"

"Yeah, just sleepy."

"You scared me a bit back there."

Harry smiles tiredly. "Sorry. But I'm okay."

"You're in the hospital."

"It's fine, really. The healer said it just went on too long?"

"That's what Remus told me. They said more than five minutes could be dangerous."

Harry looks at him curiously. "Are you worried?"

"Can't say I'm happy having you in the hospital a week after you move in with me."

"I'm okay, Sirius, I mean it. The healer said my EEG looked normal to him."

"He also said he was sending it to someone else for a second opinion."

"It's just Kirith. She diagnosed my epilepsy; he probably had to send it to her. You don't have to worry."

"I'm your godfather, kid. It's my job to worry about you." He smiles, glad to get one in return, but it fades quickly as he thinks of the man outside and asks, "Why is Snape your medical contact?"

Harry scowls. "Is he here?"

"He's outside, yeah."

"Apparently my aunt is still my legal guardian even though I'm not living with her, but the hospital won't accept a Muggle as a primary medical contact and Snape was the one looking after me so—"

" _Snape_ was looking after you?"

Harry nods. "After Dumbledore sent me back to the Dursleys, Snape came to take me to Diagon Alley and afterwards he let me stay with him while we got my medical stuff sorted, then I stayed at Hogwarts with him at the beginning of last summer until I found out he knew my uncle was hitting me when I was kid and he didn't do anything about it."

* * *

Years of being bullied as a teenager and more years hanging around Death Eaters gave Snape an enviable reaction speed, and only that stops him from being hexed when Sirius crashes out of Harry's hospital room.

"SIRIUS!" Lupin yells, leaping up and putting himself between the two men as Snape's shield falls away. "What the _hell_ do you think you're doing?"

"HE KNEW!"

"Knew what?"

"That Harry was getting smacked about as a kid. He knew and he did _nothing_."

Lupin whirls and Snape can't quite stop himself from taking a step back. "Is that true?"

"I threatened them. I tried to make them stop."

"You threat-"

"Gentlemen, do I need to call security?"

"I think that would be wise, Healer Karpel," Snape says, his eyes not leaving Sirius to look at the healer who'd just entered the corridor. "Or perhaps the Aurors. Black clearly isn't fit to be in public."

"I'm not leaving that kid alone with you for even a second, Snape. You even try and go near him and you'll be the one laid up in a hospital bed."

"Mr Black, I don't know why you're here but if you continue to threaten Professor Snape I will call security and have them escort you off the premises."

Snape smirks. Sirius grits his teeth, turning to the healer. "I'm Harry's godfather. I've got more right to be here than Snape."

Kirith looks surprised, then frowns. "I see. His file will have to be updated with that information, however for the time being Professor Snape is still Harry's primary medical contact so if I could ask you both to step into his room and we can discuss the EEG results."

"No way," Sirius says. "He let Harry get beat about as a kid. He's not going anywhere near him."

Kirith's eyes linger on Snape for a moment. "Are there any official charges against you for child abuse or endangerment?"

"I'd hardly be employed as a teacher if there were."

Kirith nods. "Excuse me a moment."

She steps into Harry's room, shutting the door behind her, then comes out again after a couple of minutes and speaks to Sirius. "Harry does not appear to be fearful of Professor Snape nor has he shown any signs of abuse or fear of him in the past, and he has agreed to allow him to be present for our conversation. I have never seen anything that causes me to suspect that Professor Snape might be abusive, neglectful, or in any way a danger to Harry. If you still have concerns about him, you will have to make an official complaint to child services. For now, he has as much right as you, if not more, to be involved in Harry's health care."

Sirius looks furious, but he nods jerkily and stalks back into the room.

Other than a brief glance when Snape enters, Harry acts like his Head of House isn't even there, just focuses on Kirith as she talks. Snape remains standing by the door and Sirius moves to take the chair by Harry's bed.

"Your EEG is normal and I've got a report from the folks in the lab saying they analysed the sample of potion and it was clean and brewed correctly."

"That's a miracle," Snape mutters and Sirius glares.

"We'll keep you in over-night but if you don't have another seizure before morning, you'll be free to go. I do advise against taking the Spirit Trance Potion again as it does appear to have been a trigger, but if you do decide to, I recommend doing so with a healer present and purchase the potion from a licensed Potions Master rather than brewing it yourself." She waited for Harry's agreement before turning to Sirius. "Mr Black, if you'll come with me I can give you the forms necessary to register yourself as Harry's next of kin."

"I'd like to remain on file as a medical contact," Snape says as Kirith turns to leave and Sirius gets to his feet, "and continue to be involved in his treatment."

"Not bloody likely."

"I want him to," Harry says.

"Why?" Sirius asks incredulously. Snape's equally surprised but hides it better.

"He's been involved since the start. He knows the most about my epilepsy and medication. I don't like him but he did help me get all this done, so he can stay as my medical contact."

"Thank you," Snape says honestly. Sirius looks like he wants to strangle him. Kirith considers Harry.

"When I've fetched the forms for Mr Black, do you mind if I have a private word with you, Harry?"

"Okay."

* * *

While Sirius is bent over the forms, frowning as he fills them in, Snape clears his throat. "Lupin, I want a word. Without your pet dog present."

"Go fuck yourself, Snape," Sirius retorts, then looks at Remus as he gets to his feet. "You're not actually going to talk to him?"

"Someone here needs to act like an adult," he says, moving down the hall with Snape. "You might want to at least try to be civil, Severus. He's godfather to your son, and no I haven't told either of them so don't bite my head off."

Snape's lip curls into a sneer. "I'm not the animal around here."

Lupin sighs. "What did you want, Severus?"

"I will brew you the Wolfsbane. You can come by my house to collect it the week before the full moon."

Lupin looks surprised. "I'm grateful for the offer, but I'm aware that Wolfsbane is expensive and given my current unemployment..."

"It wasn't an offer, Lupin. You're living in the same house as Harry. Take the potion or I'll be the one contacting child services."

"I can't pay you."

"Then get Black to or consider yourself in my debt. Either way I expect to see you in a week," he says, then whirls on his heel and stalks out.

* * *

In Harry's room, Kirith shuts the door and Harry looks at her with concern. "Is everything okay?"

"I just wanted to talk to you about these accusations Mr Black is making about Professor Snape."

"It's nothing, really. It doesn't matter."

Kirith moves over and perches on the edge of Harry's bed. "If Snape is being in anyway abusive..."

"What? No! He's not abusive. That's ridiculous."

"Can I ask why you dislike him then? In our previous appointments you've always seemed perfectly happy in his company. I just want to make sure that you're not being frightened into keeping him involved with your healthcare or anything else. If he is doing anything inappropriate then child services needs to be informed and so does Albus Dumbledore."

"I'm not," Harry promises, and when Kirith continues to look sceptical he sighs. "It's just... last summer I found out he knew that my uncle was hitting me but he didn't do anything. I mean, he said he threatened them and tried to make them stop, but he didn't take me away or anything. Not that he should have," he adds quickly. "He's not related to me or anything so he shouldn't look after me, but... it's just stupid and selfish anyway, but I hate him for not doing something more. Telling someone that could have helped."

"It's perfectly understandable that you feel that way," Kirith says gently. "Did you ever tell anyone what your uncle was doing?"

"My teacher once. They called Muggle social services but my aunt and uncle said I was a liar and I didn't want to go to an orphanage so I told them I just fell over and stuff."

"You preferred to stay with your uncle than go to an orphanage?"

Harry merely shrugs.

Outside, Lupin watches Sirius pace, done with his forms and now eager to get back to Harry.

"I'm reporting him to child services."

"Do you plan to report Dumbledore as well?"

Sirius pauses in mid-step to frown at him. "Why would I report Dumbledore?"

"He forced Harry back to the Dursleys despite knowing that they were abusive and had caused permanent damage to him. If you report Severus for something that happened years ago, you need to report Dumbledore as well. I think we also ought to hear Severus' side of the story first, and keep in mind he's just offered to brew the Wolfsbane entirely out of concern for Harry."

Sirius snorts and continues his pacing. "If it was out of concern he would be doing it for free. Anyway what's there to hear? He knew what that good-for-nothing Muggle was doing and he did nothing about it."

"He said he threatened them. We don't know what happened, Sirius. Severus is a teacher; reporting him to child services could ruin his career no matter what the end verdict."

"Good. He deserves it."

"This is not a reason for you to wage your personal war against him, Sirius," Lupin says sternly. "Dumbledore won't be pleased if you get his Potions professor fired, and you might consider Harry's feelings on the matter as well."

"He won't care if Snivellus gets fired. He hates him."

"He likes him enough to keep him involved in his healthcare. I mean it, Sirius. I understand why you want to report him, but this is not one of those things you can go charging into without considering the consequences. If you're going to look after Harry properly, you have to think about how he'll be affected by everything you do."

Sirius sighs and drops into the chair beside Lupin, leaning his head on Lupin's shoulder. "You're going to bring up seeing a shrink again, aren't you?"

"It's nothing to be ashamed of, Sirius. You spent twelve years in prison; only an idiot would expect you not to have some issues to work through."

"Yeah, but a _shrink?_ I'm not a whack-job, Moony."

"I'm not saying you are. There are plenty of sane people who see psychiatrists."

Sirius huffs. "I'll think about it."

Lupin smiles and turns his head to press a kiss to his dark hair. "Thank you."

Lupin returns home but Sirius stays at the hospital for the night despite Harry's assurances that he's fine and doesn't need babysitting.

Harry gets home the next morning to find a letter waiting for him. When he opens it, he's surprised to find it's from Malfoy, asking how his summer's going, discussing how he spent the past week relaxing and flying, complaining about all the homework he's been set, and generally acting as though they're good friends. Harry writes a brief reply saying only, _We're not friends. Why are you writing to me?_

They're eating dinner a few days after his seizure when Sirius asks, "Harry, do you want to report Snape?"

"Report him for what? To who?"

"Child services for being a neglectful slimeball."

It takes Harry a minute to figure out what Sirius is talking about. "Why would I report him for something that happened ages ago? It's not like they can do anything about him now."

"It's evidence that he's not fit to be looking after kids."

Harry sets his knife and fork down and frowns at him. "Are you trying to get him fired?"

"Of course not," Sirius says unconvincingly. "But if he happened to lose his job would that be a terrible thing?"

"Yes," Harry answers immediately. "I don't like him either, Sirius, but that doesn't mean we should get him fired, not over something that happened years ago and has nothing to do with Hogwarts."

In another few days, Malfoy writes back saying he'd like to be friends. Harry responds saying he isn't going to be friends with a racist prick who got his favourite teacher fired, and asks why he's trying to be friends now when he was perfectly content to dislike each other before.

* * *

Lupin doesn't like taking money from Sirius for the Wolfsbane, but Sirius insists that there's no way either of them will be in Snape's debt and they both agree that however much they hate the other man, taking the Wolfsbane is in Harry's best interests.

"Remus?"

"Yes, Harry?"

"Um... I was just... I was wondering..."

Lupin turns away from washing up, grabbing a tea towel to dry his hands on as he looks at Harry, who stands in the kitchen doorway, staring at the floor. "Is everything alright?"

"I, um... canIstayatafriend'shouseduringthefullmoon?" he says in a rush. "It's not—I know you're taking the potion and you won't be dangerous and you're going to be locked in your room and Padfoot—"

"It's fine," Lupin interrupts, giving a reassuring smile when Harry glances up. "Of course you can stay at a friend's house."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I understand, Harry; werewolves are scary. Trust me, I know," he says with a sardonic smile. "I'm not offended. I'd rather you be honest with me than sit in your room feeling scared. Who are you going to stay with?"

"I'll ask Tyler. He said I could come over at some point."

* * *

Harry floos into Tyler's house on Monday afternoon with a backpack holding his overnight stuff.

"Thanks for letting me stay. Sorry it was such short notice."

Tyler waves his hand dismissively. "It's cool. Do you wanna dump your bag then we can go see if Alex wants to go down to the river?"

"Sure. Hey, did his mum have the baby yet?"

Tyler scowls. "Yeah. Little Jessica. You'll probably meet her when we go over. Alex thinks she's the greatest thing ever but I just find her boring and annoying. She screams a lot."

Jessica isn't screaming when they get there. The minute they step through the door Mrs Stone warns them to keep quiet because she's just put the girl to sleep.

"Oh good," Tyler says cheerfully as they head up to Alex's room. "We might not get dragged to see her then. Oh, by the way, you remember Charlie who lives next door?"

"Yeah."

"Don't mention her to Alex. She turned into a bitch and we had a massive argument and he's still upset about it."

"Okay. What did you argue about?"

"Alex told us he's gay and she started spouting all this homophobic bullshit. We always knew her parents believed that stuff but Charlie never seemed too. Anyway, like I said, just don't mention her."

Tyler's overly hopeful. Alex begs his mum to let them creep into the nursery so Harry can see Jessica, and Alex grins proudly as they stand over the crib. She's sort of cute, Harry thinks, this little pink bundle with fine blonde hair and her tiny fingers curled loosely against her palms. He can't see what Tyler has against her, but he figures he probably can't judge when he's only seen her sleeping and not heard her crying and screaming.

Later that day, Tyler tells Harry that the two of them will be making themselves scarce the next day because Lucius Malfoy would be visiting to see Marcus.

"Is Marcus friends with Mr Malfoy?"

"They're not friends-friends, just political friends. Lucius Malfoy donates a lot of money to the Ministry so Marcus kind of has to pretend to like him. We probably wouldn't see him anyway, 'cause they'll stay in Marcus' study, but I'd rather not be here when he is, not if he's anything like Draco."

"He's been writing to me this summer."

"Draco Malfoy?"

Harry nods. "He says he wants to be friends."

" _Why_?"

"Dunno."

"Maybe Cid's right. Maybe he does want to fuck you."

"Shut up, no he doesn't. If he wanted that he'd be... I don't know. Sending roses and chocolate and doing whatever people do when they want to go out with someone."

"Roses and chocolate are for girls. Do you even like boys? You've never said anything about it."

Harry shrugs. "I dunno. I've never really had a crush on anyone."

"At all?"

"No. Is that weird?"

Tyler thinks about it for a while then shrugs. "I don't know. You've never wanted to kiss anyone? What about Jia?"

"No. She's nice, but..."

"Tabitha? She's pretty, although Cid would probably curse you if you did."

"Not really," he says, feeling uncomfortable.

"What about Malfoy? I know he's a prick but you've got to admit he's kind of good looking."

Harry looks at him in surprise. "You're gay?"

"Bi. I was actually going out with Charlie for a couple of weeks at the start of the summer before she turned into a bitch."

"Oh," Harry says, not sure how he's meant to react to that, but as he remembers the poster of the bikini clad women on one wall of Tyler's bedroom and the shirtless man on the other, he realises it probably should have been obvious.


	23. Chapter 23

Harry sleeps late the next morning and get's woken by Tyler shaking his shoulder. "Get up. We've got company."

"We do?"

"Malfoy."

"Oh right, yeah." He sits up, rubbing his eyes. "You said we wouldn't have to see him."

"I mean Draco."

That gets Harry's attention. "Why's he here?"

"Apparently their house has a bundimun infestation and they all have to leave the house while the exterminators deal with it, and his mother's off visiting friends or something. Either way, we're stuck with him for a few hours while Marcus and Mr Malfoy do whatever it is they do. He's up in my room and I probably shouldn't leave him alone for long. He might break the TV trying to turn it on or something so come up when you're dressed."

When Harry gets to Tyler's room, Malfoy's standing in front of Tyler's TV, staring transfixed at a wildlife program, but he looks around when he hears the door shut.

"Hello, Evans."

"Thought you hated all things Muggle."

He glances back at the TV. "I'm not convinced this is Muggle. Only magic could make pictures move this long and create sound."

"It's called a program," Tyler says. "And it's completely Muggle."

"It's not even repeating itself," Malfoy says, as though he hadn't heard Tyler. "That's some impressive spellwork."

Tyler just rolls his eyes.

"Are we still going out?" Harry asks.

"Yeah, I'm not changing our plans just because he's here."

"What plans?" Malfoy asks.

"We're going to see a film. The Lion King. I'm sure you'll enjoy it. You should ditch the robes though."

Malfoy stares at him.

"I don't think he understood anything you said," Harry says with a smirk. "Poor little pureblood."

Malfoy scowls. "I'm far from poor and you can't talk about little. You're still short enough to be a first year."

It was Harry's turn to scowl. "I'm not," he says, although he is smaller than the other two.

"Whatever," Tyler says. "Malfoy, take your robes off so we can go."

Malfoy stares at him. "Excuse me?"

"Robes. Off. The Muggles will stare at you otherwise."

"You want me to go out where there are _Muggles_?"

"Yeah, I do. Or you can sit in our living room on your own for a few hours, 'cause we're not staying in just for you."

"Fine," Malfoy grouches, unbuttoning his robes. "Where exactly are we going?"

"The cinema. Don't ask, we'll explain on the way."

Tyler has Muggle money to pay for the tickets and when Harry says he'll pay him back later, Tyler waves him off. Malfoy doesn't even offer.

"You guys want popcorn? Sweets? Drinks?"

Harry peers around the people ahead of them in the queue. "I haven't had Muggles sweets in ages. You mind if I have some M&Ms and a coke?"

"That's fine. Malfoy?"

Malfoy, who's trying not to look like he isn't hopelessly baffled by the posters on the walls of the cinema foyer while also trying to avoid being touched by anyone, looks at Tyler. "What?"

"Food, drink. You want any?"

Malfoy looks at the sweets on shelves behind the counter and the drink dispensers, nothing of which he recognises. "Whatever Evans is having, but if I get poisoned by some weird Muggle food I'll hex you and the people who run this place."

Malfoy makes a fuss about sitting in the cinema chairs, claiming they're filthy and 'probably carrying all kinds of diseases' but Tyler grabs his arm and pulls him down. He immediately stands up again.

"I want to sit between you two. I'm not sitting beside some horrid Muggle."

They decide not to argue with him and Harry shifts down a seat. Malfoy sits, muttering unpleasant things about Muggles the entire time. Harry's worried he'll talk all through the film, which would not only be annoying but probably get them thrown out, but from the minute the first song starts, Malfoy's gaze is fixed on the screen and the only time he speaks is to tell the young couple in front of them to shut up.

Later when they're walking back to Tyler's house, Malfoy grudgingly admits that he enjoyed the film a lot, but threatens to hex them both if they tell anyone at school or his father.

The walk back to Tyler's takes them along the river and they're halfway back when they come across a group of teenagers lounging in the grass beside it. Tyler scowls when he sees them but says nothing, and Harry notices Charlie among the group with her Jack Russell, Sammy. Tyler pretends not to notice them as they walk past, but Sammy sees him and comes tearing over, tail wagging with the boundless cheer that dogs are known for, uncaring that his owner is no longer friends with Tyler.

"No, Sammy, go away. Shoo, go on."

"Sammy, come here, boy!" Charlie calls and Sammy runs back to her, but one of the boys, who's stripped his shirt off and has a cigarette between his lips, looks over with a nasty grin and calls, "Hey, faggot, off to have a big gay orgy?"

"Fuck off, Johnny," Tyler calls back, and there's sniggers from the rest of the group.

"I'd invite you to join us," Malfoy says in his best drawl, "but I wouldn't put my dick in any of you filthy Muggles."

"Malfoy! Shut up, just—"

"The fuck did you call me?" Johnny says angrily, getting to his feet. A couple of others do as well and Tyler swears. Harry doesn't blame him. Johnny isn't much taller than Malfoy, but he's got clearly defined muscles along his torso and arms and can probably beat the crap out of all three of them. His two friends are equally well built and one of them is at least a head taller than Malfoy and twice as wide.

But Malfoy looks at Johnny with his usual haughty expression. "I called you a Muggle. It means you're a dirty-blooded ape who ought to be grateful I'm even deigning to talk to you."

"I'll show you grateful, nancy boy," Johnny says, tossing his cigarette down and putting it out with his heel before advancing with his fists clenched.

"We should run now," Tyler says, backing up. Harry nods his agreement but Malfoy stands his ground. He lifts his hand towards his chest then realises his not wearing his robes and doesn't have his wand, and his face pales. Johnny notices and grins.

"Get 'em."

Harry can't help it. The moment Johnny's big friend comes close to grabbing him, he thrusts a hand out and the boy is thrown backwards like he's been hit with a truck. Johnny already has Malfoy on his knees and sporting a bloody nose, while Tyler's pinned to the grass and shouting mercy as his arm is twisted behind his back. The other kids cheer Johnny and his friends on and when Harry pushes the big one back a few more get to their feet with the obvious intention of joining in the fight.

"Stop!" Harry cries, and everyone in the vicinity freezes. "Oh crap."

He spends a minute panicking before he decides on a plan of action. He goes to Tyler first, pushing away the boy who's pinning him down. He falls over like an action figure, still frozen stiff, and Harry touches a hand to Tyler, who jerks to life in mid shout then realises he's not pinned anymore and scrambles up, turning and looking at the frozen figures.

"Whoa..."

"I'm fixing this," Harry says.

"You did this? Fuck. The Ministry's going to be on us any minute."

"No, it's fine. Just... give me a sec."

Tyler watches as Harry goes to Malfoy, unfreezing him. Malfoy gets to his feet, wiping his bloody nose and looking around at the still frozen Muggles.

"Are you doing this?"

"Yeah, just stand over there. I need to sort this out."

"How are you going to sort this out? The Ministry's going to expel you for this—you could get arrested, using magic against Muggles."

"It's fine, just stand over there!"

Tyler and Malfoy stand to one side. Harry stands just a little in front of Johnny and inhales deeply then lets it out slowly, and Wishes them all to unfreeze.

"What the..."

"Go back to your friends," Harry orders. "Sit down and forget you ever had a fight. All of you forget you ever saw me or Malfoy or Tyler. You never saw us and none of you tried to attack us."

Tyler and Malfoy's jaws drop as the other teens do exactly that, returning to their friends and the group continues talking as though nothing had ever happened.

"How did you do that?"

"Tell you later. They can't see us, so come on."

"What do you mean they can't see us?" Tyler asks, but follows Harry down the path.

"We're invisible."

"That's funny because I can see us," Malfoy says.

"I'm letting you see us. Just shut up, both of you."

They pass through a narrow alley to get onto Tyler's street. Harry stops them both in the middle of it, glancing to check there's no one coming even though they're invisible, and reaches up to touch Malfoy's face, Wishing the blood away and his split lip healed then drawing his hand back. Malfoy blinks, touching a finger to his mouth.

"How—"

"You hurt?" Harry asks Tyler.

"Sore shoulder, but I'm fine. What—"

"Forget that we had a fight. Forget that we saw those other teenagers. Forget that you saw me do magic."

Their eyes glaze over for a moment before they shake it off and carry on their way.

"Hey, you okay?" Tyler asks Harry as they approach his house.

"Yeah, why?"

"You're shaking."

Harry glances at his hands, realising Tyler's right, and shoves them into his pockets. "I'm fine."

"Are you going to have a seizure?" Malfoy asks, rubbing at his nose and wondering why he feels like he's been punched.

"No, I'm okay, really."

"Well, we're back now so if you do at least it's not in the street."

Harry forces a smile and follows the other two boys into the house.

He returns home the next day and just before he leaves, Marcus shakes his hand.

"It's been nice having you, Harry."

"Thanks."

"Feel free to come over again. About this time next month?" he suggests with a knowing look in his eye.

"Oh. Um, yeah, thanks. Bye, Tyler."

"See you."

Harry floos into the kitchen of Black Stag House, where he finds Lupin. He looks tired and pale but he greets Harry with a smile and asks how his visit was. Harry returns the smile, tells them about the Lion King, and doesn't mention the fight. He does mention Marcus' offer though and the knowing look that came with it.

"You asked to stay with him for the night of the full moon and at short notice," Lupin says with a wry smile. "It wouldn't be hard for someone to make the connection. I wouldn't worry about it, Harry."

* * *

 _I didn't mean to get Lupin fired_ , Malfoy writes in the next letter he sends Harry. _But the truth would have come out eventually and we're all better off without a werewolf teaching us._

And Harry can't really argue with Malfoy not wanting a werewolf in the castle with him when Harry was too scared to stay in the house during the full moon.

He mentions the Lion King to Hermione in his next letter to her. She responds enthusiastically, saying she went to see it as well and thoroughly enjoyed it, then goes on for a page about all the Muggle things she misses when she's at Hogwarts.

His next letter from Malfoy presents him with a moral dilemma.

"Oh that's not fair!"

"What's not fair?" Sirius asks, pausing as he walks past Harry's open bedroom door. Harry spins in his seat.

"Malfoy has tickets to the Quidditch World Cup!"

"Didn't you tell him to stop writing to you?"

"That's beside the point. He's got tickets—and he's invited me to go!"

"Ah," Sirius says. "He really wants to be your friend."

Harry moans unhappily. "This is... it's a trick. It has to be. He can't do this to me!"

Lupin appears behind Sirius. "Who can't do what?"

"Malfoy sent him an invitation to the World Cup."

"Did he? Well that's not an opportunity you should pass up."

"But if I go that means I accept his offer of friendship."

"Is that really such a terrible thing?"

Both Harry and Sirius stare at him. "It's _Malfoy_ ," Harry says. "He got you fired. He calls Hermione a Mudblood. You taught him for a year, you know what he's like."

"I know he was raised by prejudiced parents, likely around children who were also raised by prejudiced parents, and the only way to battle those kinds of attitudes is to show them that the things they hate aren't as terrible as they think. Befriending you could be a start towards changing Draco's attitudes."

"Or it's a ploy to try and change Harry's attitude," Sirius says, frowning. "I really don't think it's a good idea for him to be hanging about the Malfoys, Moony. If Lucius figures out who he is..."

"He wouldn't hurt me, would he?" Harry asks, glancing between the two men and realising that they know something about Lucius Malfoy that he doesn't. "I know he's into all that pureblood stuff, but... I mean, I'm a half-blood, not a complete Muggleborn."

"You're also the Boy Who Lived," Sirius says, "and Malfoy was a big supporter of Voldemort back in the day."

Harry looks down at the letter in his hands. Lupin steps over, crouching down in front of him. "Harry, he wouldn't hurt you. Whatever Lucius Malfoy is, he's not an idiot. If you want to go then I think you should, but it's your choice."

"I don't think you should go," Sirius says, "but Moony's right: Malfoy probably wouldn't hurt you and it's your choice. But if you do go, I'm giving you a portkey that'll bring you straight back here if you need to."

"I'll think about it," Harry tells them.

He spends half the night thinking about it, lying in bed and staring at his ceiling, and it's three in the morning before he realises that for every reason he can think of to not go, he finds some way to explain it away. Malfoy's a git, but he's clearly trying to be friendly and as Lupin said, that could be the start of changing his attitudes to Muggleborns. The Malfoys might figure out who he is, but they might not. Lucius was a Death Eater, but Voldemort's gone now, living as some disembodied spirit somewhere. Lucius might attack him for being the Boy Who Lived if he finds out, but Harry's more powerful than Albus Dumbledore and Lord Voldemort so Lucius Malfoy is no threat to him.

And behind all that there's a massive desire to see the World Cup match. Other people might say it's a once in a lifetime opportunity for most people, but for him it really is. He's got four years until his ten years are up. Why shouldn't he do something enjoyable while he's got the chance?

* * *

His second visit to Tyler is less eventful than the first, for which Harry's grateful, but he wakes with a start on the day he's going back home, his scar burning painfully. He rubs it, sitting up and trying to remember the dream he just had. Voldemort was in it, he's sure of that much, and Peter Pettigrew, and an old man, but he can't remember the details, nor is he sure why his scar hurts so much, like someone has pressed a white-hot wire to his forehead.

The next day is the day before the Quidditch World Cup and he stands in his living room at home while Sirius turns his medical bracelet into a portkey .

"Just say Prongs and it'll activate, bring you straight back here, alright?"

"I _know_. And I shouldn't let myself be left alone with Mr Malfoy. If he tries to hurt me I have permission to use magic against him. Don't trust Mrs Malfoy, no matter how nice she is. You've told me all this, Sirius."

"Are you sure you want to go? We can find something else to make up for missing the World Cup."

"I'm going, Sirius. I'll be fine, I swear. I've got the portkey _and_ I can Apparate _and_ I can defend myself if someone attacks me."

Sirius frowns but doesn't say anything more.

"We'll see you in a few days," Lupin says, smiling at him. "Have fun."

He's greeted in the Malfoy Manor drawing room by Draco and his mother. Narcissa is a harsh-looking woman with blue eyes and blonde hair, and Harry thinks she looks surprised to see him, but it passes and she smiles, her face softening. She holds her hand out to Harry when he finishes brushing soot from his clothes.

"Narcissa Malfoy," she introduces. "It's nice to meet you, Harry."

"It's nice to meet you too, Mrs Malfoy. Thank you for having me," he says. Her eyes fall on his bracelet when he shakes her hand and he wonders if she shares Draco's opinion that it's tacky.

"Are you ill?" she asks.

"I have epilepsy. It means I have seizures."

Narcissa smiles gently. "I know what epilepsy is. I was a healer before I had Draco."

"Oh," he says, flushing. "Sorry, I didn't know."

"I wouldn't expect you to. Draco will show you to the room you'll be staying in tonight."

The guest room he's staying in is bigger than his bedroom at home and Draco's room is even larger than that. He's only got one poster on the wall, of the Holyhead Harpies, and everything is spotlessly clean and tidy (a huge difference to Tyler's room, which is perpetually messy, or Harry's own, which he only tidies when it gets _too_ messy). His books are carefully arranged on the shelves, there's not a single sock discarded on the floor, and there isn't so much as a crinkle in his bed sheets.

"I thought we could go flying, seeing as we'll be watching professionals tomorrow. You can borrow my old Comet Two Sixty."

Harry hesitates and Draco raises an eyebrow.

"You _can_ fly, can't you?"

"You going to catch me if I fall?"

"Are you really that terrible?"

"No," he replies with a scowl. "But if I have a seizure..."

"Oh. Yes, I suppose that would be bad."

"You 'suppose'," Harry mutters, rolling his eyes. "Is that what you'll say when I've fallen to my death? 'I suppose it was a bad idea'."

"Do you want to go flying or not? I'll stick close if that's what you need, though it's a dreadful way to fly a Firebolt."

"We can go. But just so you know, if I fall off and you don't catch me, I'm going to haunt your bedroom for the rest of your life."

Harry doesn't fall but Draco keeps his word and flies close. The Comet 260 is miserable compared to the Firebolt, but it's still the best broom Harry's ever ridden and as soon as he gets on it he can feel the difference compared to the Shooting Stars he used at Hogwarts.

He doesn't see Lucius until dinner that evening.

"So, Harry, you're starting your third year this September, correct? What subjects are you taking?"

"Arithmancy and Ancient Runes."

"Only two?"

"I wanted to take Care of Magical Creatures as well, but then Professor Hagrid started teaching it..."

"Ah," Lucius says, "I quite understand. A terrible decision of Dumbledore's. If you struggle at all with Ancient Runes, I'm sure Draco won't mind assisting you in your studies. It's one of his better subjects."

"Thank you, Father."

Lucius hardly glances at his son. "What are your best subjects?"

"Charms and History of Magic."

"What do you plan to do for a career?"

"I haven't really decided," Harry says, wishing he'd stop asking so many questions, no matter how harmless they appear to be.

"You've got plenty of time to choose," Narcissa says. "What do you like to do in your spare time?"

"Read, mostly. I'm a bit of a book worm."

Narcissa smiles. "As am I. I do enjoy a good book. It's an excellent way to relax, don't you agree?"

He nods and despite Sirius' warning about Narcissa's niceness he finds himself warming to her.

Draco gives him a tour of the manor later that evening, showing him rooms, pointing out portraits of his more notable ancestors, and giving him a history of the house.

"That's Father's cellar; we're not allowed in there. Over there—"

"Your father has his own cellar?"

"It's just to separate it from the wine cellar in the kitchen, but there's nothing in there. I sneak in every few years just to check. I don't know why he forbids me from going in, it's completely empty. Anyway, this is my uncle Tiberius. He died when I was nine. Tried to keep a dragon in his basement, burnt the house down. Shame really, he gave great birthday presents..."


	24. Chapter 24

"It's rather small," Lucius says as he flicks his wand to set up their tent in the campsite, "but we will make do for one night."

Harry bites his tongue and doesn't comment on the fact that the tent looks like it's barely big enough for one man, let alone the four of them, but when it's erected Narcissa immediately steps through the entrance flap and disappears. Draco follows her and Lucius gestures for Harry to do the same. He's glad he hadn't said anything when he finds himself inside a house the size of his home with Sirius and Lupin; of course magical tents would be bigger on the inside, he realises.

Their tickets put them in the top box with the Minister of Magic and they're the last ones there. There are several other important Ministry personnel there and filling half the row in front of them is the Weasley family, all except Molly Weasley.

"Good lord, Arthur," Lucius says softly. "What did you have to sell to get seats in the Top Box? Surely your house wouldn't have fetched this much?"

Mr Weasley doesn't react to his comment except for his ears to turn bright red. Ron, Ginny, and the twins glare at Draco (who glares right back) and Harry (who ignores them) and then they take their seats just before Ludo Bagman, Head of the Department of Magical Games and Sports and one time Beater for the England national team, comes rushing into the top box to introduce the game.

Harry looks at Draco oddly when he sticks his fingers in his ears as the veela walk onto the pitch, but forgets all about him when they start dancing, instead staring transfixed at the beautiful women and thinking that he'll fly out onto the pitch and show them some of his magic. He might not be much to look at but he can charm the pants off any of them if he just—

"Good Lord! Sorry, folks, just a sudden infestation of butterflies in the top box. That is odd."

Harry blinks and glances up, seeing that Bagman's right.

"Is this part of the match?" Ginny asks her father in front of them.

"I... don't think so."

Everyone in the box is equally surprised and Harry quickly schools his face into a similar expression of shock and Wishes them away.

"And they've gone," Bagman says. "How very bizarre. But now please kindly put your wands in the air... for the Irish National Team Mascots!"

The match is incredible. The fliers are better than anything Harry's imagined, zooming around the field and executing moves that leave the entire stadium in awe. The Irish team in particular are amazing but the Bulgarian Seeker, Victor Krum, makes Harry wish more than ever that he could play Quidditch. He wants to be able to fly like that.

The next time the veelas start dancing, Harry takes Draco's lead and shoves his fingers in his ears and shuts his eyes. The last thing he needs is to let his magic get out of control.

Ireland win, although Krum catches the snitch. Harry and Draco leap out of their seats cheering, not even noticing the dirty looks Lucius gives them or the glance Narcissa gives Lucius that silently tells him not to berate them for their behaviour.

Harry and Draco spend the walk back to the tent avidly discussing the match and the players. When they get back to the tent Narcissa magics up some hot chocolate for them both and only then do they realise Lucius isn't there.

"Where's Father?"

"He joined some friends of his, darling. I'm going to go and join him. You two boys can look after yourself for a short while, but try not to stay up too late. We've got one of the earliest portkey's home in the morning."

A short while turns into a couple of hours, which turns into a couple more, then there are screams coming from outside their tent and when they investigate, a group of wizards has the campsite's Muggle owner and his family flying in the air above them, controlling them like puppeteers.

"We should get to the woods. Come on."

Harry follows Draco to the woods, where they stop just beyond the treeline and stand watching the growing group of wizards. Harry wants to help the Muggles, but he doesn't know how without potentially putting them in more danger or angering the wizards below, who might move on to hurting other people.

"Scared, Evans?"

Harry glances at Draco, whose arms are folded over his chest as he watches, leant against a tree looking perfectly relaxed.

"No."

But he glances at his bracelet. If ever there was a time to use it... but he can't just run away. He probably shouldn't leave Draco alone, for one, even if he does look almost bored with what's going on. He could offer to take him with him, but he's not sure Sirius and Lupin would appreciate him bringing Draco back to their house, and Draco probably wouldn't want to leave when his parents are still here somewhere.

"Do you think..."

Draco glances at him questioningly. "What?"

"Your parents. Are they out there?"

Draco looks back to the large group. "I don't know. Maybe."

"Is this the kind of thing you agree with? Torturing Muggles?"

"This isn't torture. It's just... a bit of fun."

"A bit of fun? You think _that's_ a bit of fun?" he asks, pointing at the child that's spinning like a top, their head flopping limply from side to side. "That kid can't be more than seven."

Draco doesn't look at him. "They're just Muggles."

"They're people just like us."

"Muggles aren't like us. We're better than them. They're just... they're just Muggles."

Harry doesn't get a chance to argue further. The sky above them is suddenly lit up by a bright green skull with a serpent protruding from its mouth. Harry's mouth goes dry and screams erupt from the woods around them. Even Draco turns pale at the sight of it.

"The tent—" he says, then he runs out the woods. Harry follows him and when they get there, Lucius and Narcissa are already inside, both pale faced. Narcissa grabs Draco and hugs him.

"Get your things, we're leaving. Quickly."

"How—?"

"We'll side-along Apparate you."

Harry grabs his bag, which only needs zipping up before he shrugs it onto his shoulders. When Lucius reaches for his arm, Harry jerks away.

"I have an a emergency portkey. I'm going home."

"Fine. Draco."

Draco shoots Harry a look that he can't decipher in the second before the three Malfoys disappear with a pop, but he doesn't linger.

"Prongs," he says, and his stomach jerks.

The next thing he's aware of is being sat on the sofa at home, feeling the familiar post-seizure fatigue while Lupin sits beside him and Padfoot's at his feet, head resting on Harry's thigh.

"Are you alright?" Lupin asks, and Padfoot lifts his head and whines.

"There were Death Eaters," he says, and suddenly it's Sirius sat at his feet and Lupin looks startled. "After the game, there were Death Eaters torturing this Muggle family and the campsite got trampled and then the Dark Mark showed up."

Lupin inhales sharply. Sirius is pale.

"Were you hurt?"

Harry shakes his head. "We hid in the woods."

"Why didn't you come back sooner?"

"I didn't want to leave Draco alone. His parents were... they weren't there."

He doesn't sleep well that night. He lays in bed with Padfoot curled at the end, thinking about the dream he had three days ago and how his scar burned when he woke. Now, thirteen years after it was last seen, the Dark Mark shows up. What does it mean? Does it mean anything or is it just a coincidence? But the last time his scar hurt like that was when he fought with Quirrell over the Philosopher's Stone when Quirrell was possessed by Voldemort. Voldemort definitely wasn't anywhere near him three days ago, so why did it hurt? And why did the Dark Mark show up so soon afterwards?

* * *

They go to Diagon Alley a few days later to buy his school supplies. He needs new school robes and has to get some formal dress robes as well. It would be alright if people didn't keep stopping to stare at Sirius, still gossiping about him even months after his innocence has been proven. Harry eventually Wishes for them all to just not notice him; it's not quite invisibility, but it stops the staring and the whispers.

When he's packing the night before the train goes back to Hogwarts, Sirius bounds into his room and hands him the Marauders Map along with his signed permission slip for visiting Hogsmeade, while Lupin stands in the doorway with an indulgent smile.

"So you can carry on your dad's legacy," Sirius says, "Do you remember how to work it?"

Harry nods, taking the map with a grin. "Thanks. Does this mean if I get in trouble I can blame it on you guys?"

"You can blame Sirius," Lupin says. "No one will doubt he's been encouraging you to get into mischief."

Sirius gasps in mock offence. "What are you trying to imply, Moony?"

"I'm not implying anything, Padfoot. I'm stating outright that you're a terrible influence on the next generation."

"Well, it's a hard job, but someone's got to do it."

They're late getting to platform nine and three-quarters the next morning and most of the compartments are full by the time Harry gets onto the train. He stows his trunk and walks along the carriages. When he finds Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle in the doorway of a compartment, taunting someone, he doesn't think much of it until he hears Hermione's voice.

"Either explain what you're going on about or go away, Malfoy."

"Don't tell me you don't know," Malfoy says gleefully. "My father told me ages ago, heard it from Cornelius Fudge himself, but then my father's always been associated with the top people at the Ministry. Oh, Evans," he says, noticing Harry, "did I tell you about what's happening at the school this year?"

"No, and I don't care either. Hermione, can I sit with you guys?"

"You're not sitting with _us_ ," replies Ron Weasley's voice. Harry can't quite see him past Crabbe's hulking form. "We don't sit with scummy Slytherins."

"You shouldn't degrade yourself by sitting with Mudbloods and blood traitors anyway," Malfoy says with a sneer. "You're welcome to sit with us."

"I don't want to sit with the son of a Death Eater," Harry snaps. "Or anyone who thinks they can call my friend a Mudblood."

He turns, walking away and thinking he'll just keep looking for Cid and Tyler, but Malfoy grabs his shoulder.

"I thought we were friends."

"We weren't friends, Malfoy. We might have been taking steps along the path to one day becoming friends, but then you showed the kind of person you really are and it's not someone I want to be friends with. I don't know why you decided you were going to try and befriend me in the first place, but just don't bother, alright?"

He eventually finds Cid and Tyler sitting with Alex Stone, and a girl who Cid introduces as his sister, Layla. Harry's surprised by her; he knows they're only half-siblings but the only similarity in their appearances is that they both have dark hair. Cid is tall, broad, and very obviously of Mediterranean descent, whereas Layla is small, pale, and delicate. She looks like a strong wind would knock her over, but her face is cheerful and she clearly adores Cid as much as he cares for her.

Harry forgets about Malfoy by the time they reach Hogsmeade. It's pouring with rain when they get there and they're soaked within seconds. Cid removes his cloak and puts it over his sister and then insists on accompanying her over to where the other first years are joining Hagrid, leaving her be only when she gives him a shove and the small group start heading off towards the lake.

The sorting and the meal pass unremarkably, but after they've eaten Dumbledore stands and makes an announcement that causes uproar.

"The Inter-House Quidditch Cup will not take place this year."

Cries of outrage echo through the hall. The members of the Slytherin Quidditch team glare at Dumbledore with murder in their eyes and the other house teams look just as furious. Dumbledore appears completely unfazed.

"This is due to an event that will be starting in October and continuing through the school year, taking up much of the teachers' time and energy—but I am sure you will all enjoy it immensely. I have the great pleasure in announcing that this year at Hogwarts—"

He's interrupted by the doors opening. Harry's never seen Mad-Eye Moody, but he's read about him and the instant he sees him clump into the hall, he knows who he is. There's no way the scarred, one-legged man could be anyone else.

"Who's that?" asks Layla, sat beside Cid and stretching to peer past people. "Is he a teacher?"

"You think he's the new Defence teacher?" Tyler asks no one in particular.

"It's going to be one hell of a year if it is," Harry says. "That's Mad-Eye Moody."

Tyler clearly knows the name, looking at Moody with renewed interest as he approaches Dumbledore. The two an exchange a few words then Moody takes his seat at the staff table as Dumbledore introduces him before continuing with his original announcement.

"I am pleased to announce that Hogwarts has been given the great honour of hosting a legendary event this year: the Triwizard Tournament. For those who don't know, the Triwizard Tournament brings together three schools for a series of magical contests. From each institute a single student is selected to compete for the honour of their school and a thousand galleon prize money. The heads of Beauxbatons and Durmstang will be arriving with their short-listed contenders in October and the selection of the three contenders will take place on Hallowe'en, when an impartial judge will decide which students are worthy to compete for the Triwizard Cup."

All the talk that evening as they head back to their common rooms is of the Triwizard Tournament. Harry has to admit that the idea of competing is appealing. He could do it, even if he isn't old enough. He falls asleep that night with visions of standing before the school, the Triwizard cup held up as they cheer for him.

He's annoyed when Malfoy all but corners him in the bathroom the next morning. They're the only ones in there and Harry's got no interest in getting into a fight with him.

"What's it going to take for you to not hate me?"

"Try being a decent human being. Why are you so intent on it anyway? You never cared before I had that seizure back in May."

Malfoy doesn't answer straight away, looking at Harry thoughtfully for a moment before he says, "I know who you are."

"What?"

"I know who you are."

"I would expect you to after harassing me for so long. What d'you want, a medal?"

Malfoy folds his arms over his chest. "You're the Boy Who Lived."

Harry's stomach drops. He tries to keep his face blank. "That's ridiculous."

"I saw it—the scar. When you had that seizure in May. Whatever spell it is you use to hide it, it broke when you were twitching about all over the place. You might want to be careful about that."

Harry's mouth is dry. "Why are you telling me this now? Who else knows? Who have you told?"

"No one. I've kept your secrets. I haven't even told my parents."

"This is why you've been trying to befriend me? You just want the Boy Who Lived on your side?"

Malfoy shrugs. "You wanted to know. Now I've told you."

"And what? If I keep saying no you'll spill my secret?" He won't. He won't even leave the bathroom knowing it. Harry's not letting him walk away with this knowledge.

"No," Malfoy says, and Harry doesn't believe it for a second. "I've haven't told anyone yet and I won't. You've got the wrong idea about me, Evans."

"I really don't think I have. You're a Muggle-hating prick who's only being nice because you want powerful friends."

"You're a third year; you're not that powerful. As for the Muggles, they deserve it. I heard it was a Muggle that blinded your eye and caused your epilepsy. How can you defend them after that?"

"It was a wizard that killed my parents and tried to kill me. Wizards aren't better than Muggles. We're all people. We're all made of shit."

"Pretty miserable outlook on life for a thirteen year old."

"Fourteen and you'd have a miserable outlook on life if you'd met the people I have. I'm done discussing this. Forget—"

The bathroom door opens and Logan Sparrow walks in, a fifth year prefect. He glances at them on his way to the sinks.

"If you two are getting frisky, take it somewhere else. This is a shared bathroom. We don't want to see it."

"Please," Malfoy drawls with a sneer, "I would never do anything like that in a shared bathroom. There are all kinds of germs. See you around, Evans."

The confrontation makes Harry forget to take his anti-convulsion potion that morning (a bad start to finally being able to manage it himself instead of going to the Hospital Wing every morning) and between that and the worry about Malfoy knowing who he is, he's not surprised when he finds himself lying on the floor of the Potions classroom that afternoon, his head pounding, Snape watching him from a nearby stool and the rest of his classmates gone.

Snape walks him up to the Hospital Wing; he hit his head when he fell, which explains the raging headache.

"Don't you have a class to teach?"

"Not right now. I also sent Miss Liao with a note to Professor Vector explaining your absence."

"Can't believe I'm missing my first Arithmancy class. What a crappy way to start the year."

"Language," Snape scolds but without much severity, then says, "You seemed distracted in class today. Is there something on your mind that could have triggered the seizure?"

He stops suddenly, looking up at Snape who turns to him questioningly. "My scar—did it show when I had the seizure?"

"Not that I noticed. Why?"

"Malfoy knows who I am. He saw me have a seizure back in May and he said my scar showed. He told me so this morning and I was so distracted I forgot to take my potion."

Snape gestures for him to continue walking. "He discovered this is May and only told you now?"

"He's been trying to be friends with me since then. He was being nice at the end of last year, he kept writing to me in the summer, and he took me to the World Cup match."

Snape looks at him sharply. "You were there? With the Malfoys? Was Black or Lupin with you?"

Harry shakes his head. "Just me, Malfoy, and his parents. I had an emergency portkey though. Sirius set my bracelet up. He was worried Mr Malfoy might figure out who I was and hurt me."

"If Draco knows, he may have told Lucius already. You put yourself at risk going there alone."

"I wanted to see the match; I'm not going to get another chance. And Malfoy hasn't told anyone."

"You believe him about that? I thought you knew better than to trust the words of someone like Draco."

Harry glances around but the corridor approaching the Hospital Wing is empty and there are no nearby doors for anyone to be hiding behind. "I Wished him to tell the truth. He hasn't told anyone. I was going to make him forget, but Sparrow walked in on us and I didn't get chance."

It's Snape's turn to stop walking and turn to him, raising an eyebrow. "You were going to memory charm Draco?"

"He might not have told anyone yet but that doesn't mean he won't. I can't let him remember."

"And if you'd made him forget everything, how did you plan to explain that?"

"I wouldn't," Harry says defensively. "As long as I word it right, it's fine."

"You've memory charmed people before, have you?" Snape sneers, clearly expecting the answer to be no, then he narrows his eyes when Harry looks away. "Who?"

He tells him about the fight from when he visited Tyler's the first time this summer.

"Are you going to report me to the Ministry?"

"Report you for what? There's no evidence you did anything. If your memory charms are as effective as everything else, they're not likely to be able to find out who did it from the children, and as you didn't use a wand, they won't be able to link it back to you with that."

"If they could, would you report me?"

"If they could, I wouldn't need to. They'd have known you did it anyway."

"I had to do it," Harry says defensively. "They saw me do magic when I didn't mean to."

"I understand that, but that doesn't mean I approve of you fiddling with the memory of two students and several Muggles. You need to learn to control your magic better. You are prone to outbursts and one day you could cause serious harm to yourself or other people."

"Does this mean I'm not allowed to make Malfoy forget about me?" he asks as they reach the Hospital Wing.

"I certainly don't think you ought to," Snape says, frowning. "No matter how skilled you are, memory charms can be detrimental if used repeatedly on the same person."

"Then what _am_ I supposed to do about it?"

"You're a Slytherin, Evans. Be cunning."


	25. Chapter 25

Harry's not sure what exactly Snape means when he says Harry's supposed to be cunning in dealing with Malfoy. He tells himself he'll think over it for a few days—no longer than a week—then if he hasn't figured it out, he'll just memory charm him. To Harry, that still seems like the ideal course of action.

A fight breaks out before dinner that day when Malfoy starts taunting Ron Weasley because of a news article in the _Daily Prophet_ that paints Mr Weasley in a bad light. Harry watches from the crowd, sees Malfoy throw a curse at Ron when he insults Malfoy's mother, and sees Moody transfigure Malfoy into a ferret for it.

Harry hasn't formed much of an opinion of Moody beyond the general sort of respect that he has towards any law enforcement personnel, but that vanishes when he sees Moody bouncing the ferret up and down, driving it higher and higher and hitting the floor harder and harder. He doesn't care how many dark wizards Moody's put behind bars and it doesn't matter that it's Malfoy being attacked, because there's nothing Harry hates more than a bully.

After dinner, he heads to the library where he finds Hermione working. She jumps when he greets her and instead of returning his greeting smile, she looks at him almost warily.

"What's wrong?" he asks.

"Why did Malfoy think you were friends? I heard him on the train yesterday."

He didn't mention attending the Quidditch cup with the Malfoys prior to going and didn't write to anyone in the last week of the holidays, figuring there was little point when they'd all be back at school soon.

"You know I told you he was writing to me in the summer?"

"You also said you told him to stop."

"He didn't. He invited me to go to the Quidditch World Cup with him and his parents."

"And you _went_?"

"It was the World Cup, Hermione. I know you're not a big Quidditch fan but surely you realise the kind of opportunity that was."

"But it's _Malfoy_."

"I know, but there was no other chance I was going to get to go, and Remus said that befriending Malfoy could be a step towards making him change his attitudes."

"Or towards changing yours."

"You think I'm going to suddenly start spouting that pureblood rubbish by hanging around him?" he asks angrily.

"If you believe he can change, then so can you."

"Yeah, because I'm totally going to start supporting the guy who _murdered my parents_."

Hermione goes red. "I-I'm sorry," she stammers. "Of course not, I didn't mean that."

"Then what did you mean?"

"Just that... look, I know you'd never support You Know Who or what he does, but you have to realise that Malfoy can influence you just as much as you can influence him. Not all pureblood idealists are supporters of You Know Who. Some of them just believe in segregation rather than murder and torture."

"Well you don't have to worry about that. If you listened yesterday, you'd have heard that we're not friends. I assume you heard about what happened at the World Cup?"

Hermione nods. "It sounds awful."

"It was. We saw the whole thing and Malfoy didn't give a damn about those Muggles. I'm not being friends with him, so you really don't have to worry about him influencing me. Besides, I'd never do anything that would make me abandon the first friend I ever had," he says, and is glad to see her smile.

Their first Defence class of the year is the next day. Harry sits at the back, listening to Moody talk. Lupin was good and he was interesting, but Moody talks about Defence with the experience of someone who's been out there and seen it all first hand. Not that it makes Harry like him any better.

"The Ministry reckons you shouldn't see these curses until sixth year, but Professor Dumbledore's got a higher opinion of your nerves, even if it did take some convincing. But the sooner you know what you're up against, the better. Dark wizards aren't going to tell you what they're doing before they curse you, they're not going to be nice about it, so you need to be prepared, watchful, and alert."

Harry's not amused by the spider forced to dance around on Moody's desk by the Imperius, and when he casts the Cruciatus it only further cements Harry's negative opinion of the man. He realises it's just a spider, but he feels Moody could just as easily and carelessly cast it on a human. But the Killing Curse leaves Harry feeling oddly shaken. When Moody mentions that Harry Potter's the only person to have survived it, Harry stares at his desk and has to forcibly remind himself that no one knows who he is and they're not all staring at him.

They're supposed to be Transfiguring water goblets into birds in their next class, but Harry's mind is still on their Defence class. Only when McGonagall comes by his table, inspecting their spell work, does he even try the spell. He jabs his wand at the water goblet and mutters the incantation, but instead of a living wren, it turns into a pile of dead spiders, which makes Tabitha Sinclair, sat at the next desk over, shriek and scramble out of her seat to get away from them. Harry's just surprised.

"Well," McGonagall says, transfiguring the spiders back into a goblet. "I can hardly take points for a perfect transfiguration, but please keep your mind on the correct animal, Mr Evans. There are enough spiders in this castle without you adding more."

She keeps him behind after class and cuts him off when he starts to apologise.

"I didn't hold you back for punishment, Evans," she says, placing a goblet on her desk. "I want you to do it again."

"I'm sorry?"

"Cast the spell I taught you today, precisely rather than half-heartedly this time, and turn this goblet into spiders."

"Um, alright."

He does so, flicking his wand in the right motions and enunciating the incantation clearly, but thinking of spiders instead of wrens. When it's done, McGonagall turns them back and looks at Harry appraisingly

"Do you know much Latin?"

"Not really," he answers honestly, not sure why she's asking him about that. "Just the occasional word picked up from spells."

"Then you don't realise that this spell should turn an object into a wren and only a wren. At the very most you could cause the targeted object to become a bird of the same genus, but not an invertebrate."

"Oh," he says, and she sighs.

"This means that you ought to pay more attention when you're spell casting, Mr Evans. Your classmates are likely too startled today and too young to realise, but other people will notice that you can cast spells that don't react as they should."

"Oh," he says again, but this time in realisation. "Then they'll figure out my magic isn't normal."

She nods. "I don't know the specifics of your 'Wish Magic', but it seems to me neither do you. I strongly advise you be careful and perhaps spend some time exploring your boundaries."

* * *

Ancient Runes and Arithmancy classes are as demanding as he remembers them being from the few he snuck into the year he spent hiding in the school. He enjoys having classes that genuinely challenge him; his other classes are all mostly a matter of learning the theory and letting his magic do the rest. Even Potions is simple enough as long as he pays attention, follows the instructions, and remembers the numerous applications of various ingredients. Only Herbology and Astronomy provide him with any great difficulty—using magic on some plants can be dangerous, so he can't cheat his way through that, and he's terrible at finding the right stars in Astronomy. He can easily memorise a star chart, but he can never manage to properly match the chart to the real thing.

On Friday of that first week, Harry corners Malfoy in a deserted corridor in the dungeons. Malfoy's still being nice to him, greeting him every morning and nodding politely when they pass in the corridors. Harry returns them all with stony glares

"No one would believe you."

Malfoy raises an eyebrow. "About...?"

"Me. If you told, no one would believe you. You can't prove it."

"I said I wouldn't tell anyone anyway."

"Why not?" he demands. "What are you up to, Malfoy?"

"Is it really so hard to believe I'm doing this out of the—"

"Don't even think about finishing that sentence," Harry interrupts. "You don't have a heart. You proved that at the World Cup."

"What do _you_ want, Evans? Is there a reason you cornered me or are you just eager to spend more time with me?"

Harry sneers, stepping back. "As if," he says. "I just wanted to warn you that if you do try and tell anyone about me, I might have to let slip that the perfect little pureblood spent time at a Muggle establishment this summer and enjoyed it."

"You can't prove that anymore than I can prove who you are. Less. All I have to do is cause you to have a seizure then point out a certain scar, and I've been doing a little research on epilepsy so don't think I couldn't do it."

"For someone who's so eager to have me as a friend, you're doing a good job of making me hate you more. Threatening people isn't how you make friends, Malfoy."

"Well being nice isn't working, so why shouldn't I move on to less conventional methods?"

"How about you just stop? What's it going to take to get it through your head—I. Don't. Want. To be. Your. Friend."

"Fine, so don't be," Malfoy sneers, shoving him away. "Just remember there's nothing illegal about being polite."

That same day, he's working in the library when Hermione comes up to his table and dumps a box down. Neville follows her, an apprehensive expression on his face.

"I was hoping to find you here."

"Hey, Hermione. What's up?"

"I want you to join S.P.E.W."

"Spew? What's that?"

Neville winces. Hermione huffs. "It's not _spew_ , it's S-P-E-W. The Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare."

"Never heard of it."

"I came up with it yesterday. Neville's already joined."

"Okay, but what exactly is it? What's its purpose?"

"To stop the dreadful treatment of house elves. Our short term aims are to get them fair wages and working conditions. Our long term aims—"

"Hang on, you want to pay house elves?"

"They're slaves, Harry. It's cruel and horrible and it's been going on for centuries. Even Hogwarts is a part of this monstrosity; did you know there are over a hundred elves working in the castle? It's an outrage."

"But elves like working. It's what they do."

"Only because wizards have conditioned them to be that way! They've been mistreated and brain-washed into thinking they like enslavement. It's time something was done. It's time _we_ did something about it. That's why I'm making you secretary, and I'll give you some badges—" she gestures to the box she'd dumped on the table "—so you can get your other friends to join."

Harry shakes his head. "Sorry, Hermione, and good luck, but I'm not joining. I've met a few house elves and they all seemed perfectly happy to me. Besides, I'd get laughed out of Slytherin if I tried getting people to vie for house elf rights."

Hermione gets up, grabbing her box and storming out the library.

"I don't think she's going to talk to you anymore," Neville says, watching her go.

"She'll get over it. Right?"

Neville shrugs. "She's spent all week researching; she's become obsessed with this elf rights thing. You could always join and just tell her you tried to convince your friends to sign up."

"Maybe, but she wouldn't believe that right now."

"Yeah, guess not."

* * *

Harry takes McGonagall's advice and spends some time practising his magic. It doesn't take him long to discover that he can make his wand completely redundant. He can perfectly cast a spell with the correct wand movements and clearly spoken incantation, but as long as he concentrates, he can use his Wish Magic to bring about a completely different result. He's not sure there's much point to it, but it's a cool trick nevertheless.

He's surprised when, several weeks later, Moody announces that he'll be putting each of them under the Imperius Curse to show them what it's like and see how they hold up against it.

"But, sir, the use of those curses on a human being is illegal," Jia points out.

"Dumbledore wants you taught what it feels like," says Moody, his magical eye swivelling onto Jia and fixing her with an eerie, unblinking stare. "If you'd rather learn the hard way—when someone's putting it on you so they can control you completely—fine by me. You're excused. Off you go."

Jia glances towards the door, but she doesn't leave and neither does anyone else.

The Imperius makes Harry feel surprisingly relaxed and content. He'd thought it would be utterly terrifying, to lose control of himself like that, but he feels only calmly happy.

_Jump onto the desk_ , comes Moody's voice.

He bends his knees, but somewhere in the back of his head a second voice says, 'Don't be an idiot.'

_Jump onto the desk._

'Why would you do that? We don't want to jump onto the desk. There's no point.'

_Jump! NOW!_

'DON'T.'

"That's more like it!"

The echoing, empty sensation in his head disappears. His knees are hurting and the desk he was told to jump on has toppled over from his attempt to jump on it and stop himself all at the same time.

"He damn near resisted that. Let's go again, Evans, and the rest of you pay attention: watch his eyes—the good one—that's where you see it..."

He resists it the second time. That little voice inside his head is more demanding this time, sounding almost angry, as though personally offended at him for not resisting it the first time, and it's far more convincing than Moody's orders. His dislike of Moody helps; there's a rebellious desire not to do what he says anyway so he'd much rather listen to that little voice in his head than listen to Moody.

* * *

"You alright there, Evans?" Moody growls.

_Oh yes,_ drawls the voice in his head, _absolutely fine_.

He idly wonders when he started making such sarcastic remarks to himself, but ignores the voice and looks around. He's on the floor of the Defence classroom, the desks have all been moved back into place and instead of his classmates, there's a group of sixth years in the room, getting out their books and shooting him curious or worried glances.

"I'm alright," he mutters, sitting up.

"You need taking to the Hospital Wing?"

He shakes his head, getting to his feet despite feeling weak still. "I'm fine, sir."

Moody looks at him with his normal eye while his electric blue one gazes around the class. "Weasley, walk him to his next class. Just one of you will do," he adds when both Fred and George get to their feet. Without even discussing it or looking at one another, Fred sits back down and George joins Harry as he leaves the classroom.

"You sure you don't need to go to the hospital? You don't look that great."

"I'm fine. You don't need to walk me there."

George shrugs, hands in his pockets. "Gets me out of class. Where are you meant to be, anyway?"

"Transfiguration."

McGonagall eyes him with a frown when they reach her class, but doesn't comment on his pale face.

"Thank you, Weasley, you can return to your class. Take a seat, Evans. Now, who can tell me which of the five principle exceptions to Gamp's Law is relevant to the transfiguration of non-living to living matter?"

Harry does find one thing to like about Moody—his magical eye inspires Harry to write to Kirith Karpel to ask about the possibility of him getting one. It's two years since she told him he can't and he's hoping it's long enough for her to have changed her mind.

_Just as long as it's not that ugly monstrosity Moody's wearing_ , remarks his newly vocal inner voice.

* * *

A notice goes up on the twenty-seventh of October announcing that the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang students would be arriving the following Friday. Their last class, Charms for the third year Slytherins, is cut short so they can return their bags to their dorms before assembling at the front of the castle to greet the visiting students.

"Fucking cool," Cid declares when the Beauxbatons carriage lands in front of where they're all lined up in front of the castle on Friday evening. "Look at those horses..."

Harry has to agree that the huge, winged palominos pulling the carriage are beautiful creatures, but he's soon distracted by Madame Maxime, who's by far the largest woman he's ever seen. She towers over Dumbledore and is matched in height by only Hagrid.

Harry's more impressed by the Durmstrang ship. While less impressive in looks than the Beauxbatons carriage and horses, he thinks sprouting out of the lake is much more interesting. But the most astounding part about Durmstrang isn't the ship or sprouting out of the lake, but the fact that trailing along behind Headmaster Karkaroff is Viktor Krum.

Cid almost dies of joy when the Durmstrang students choose to sit at the Slytherin table when they all get inside the Great Hall.

"Can you fucking believe this? Viktor Krum! Sitting right there! Merlin, this is fucking cool!"

"Chill out," Tyler tells him. "He's just a—"

Cid slaps a hand over Tyler's mouth, glaring at him. "Don't. Finish. That. Viktor Krum is the definition of awesome, okay? He's the best seeker _ever_ and if you say anything against him, I will put worms in your bed."

Tyler's smiling when Cid pulls his hand away. "Whatever you say."

"He is pretty incredible," Harry says, though he's not turned into a flailing fanboy like Cid. "He flew amazingly in the World Cup."

"Did he ever," Cid sighs adoringly.

"He's not very handsome though," says Layla from a few seats down, having listened to their conversation. Cid's adoring expression turns sour in an instant.

"You're twelve, Layla. You can't say things like that. You shouldn't even think things like that."

Layla just beams at him and his expression softens.

After the meal, Dumbledore stands and draws everyone's attention.

"The moment has come. The Triwizard Tournament is about to start. I would like to say a few words of explanation before we bring in the casket just to clarify the procedure that we will be following this year. There will be three tasks, spaced throughout the school year, and they will test the champions in many different ways... their magical prowess—their daring—their powers of deduction—and, of course, their ability to cope with danger. As you know, three champions compete in the tournament, one from each of the participating schools. They will be marked on how well they perform each of the Tournament tasks and the champion with the highest total after task three will win the Triwizard Cup. The champions will be chosen by an impartial selector: the Goblet of Fire."

The goblet is a roughly hewn wooden cup that would be completely unremarkable if it weren't brewing with dancing blue flames. Dumbledore tells them that it will be placed in the Entrance Hall and that any students wishing to enter the tournament need only write their name on a bit of parchment and put it in the goblet. An age line will be drawn around it to prevent any underage students giving in to temptation, and Harry's first thought is 'I wonder if I can get past it'.

_Idiot. Of course you can._

He can't resist sneaking out of Slytherin that night, creeping along invisible and with the Marauder's Map in hand to check for anyone else about. He sees no one else as he heads up to the Entrance Hall, where he pockets the Map and glances around before approaching the age line. He hesitates just outside it, not sure what'll happen to anyone who's underage that tries to cross it, then silently Wishes don't notice me, don't notice me, don't notice me and steps over the flickering blue line. He stops just on the other side, standing for a moment, but nothing happens. He moves further in until he's right up by the cup, and he's suddenly glad he didn't write his name on a bit of parchment because if he had he wouldn't have been able to resist putting it in, and he's pretty sure he'd get in massive amounts of trouble for that no matter how skilled he is.

He sits with everyone else in nervous anticipation the next evening, waiting eagerly to hear who'll be chosen as champions. Only a few Slytherins have entered, none of whom Harry really knows, but he supports them out of house loyalty.

"The champion for Durmstrang will be Viktor Krum."

"The champion for Beauxbatons will be Fleur Delacour."

"The champion for Hogwarts will be Cedric Diggory."

"Excellent!" Dumbledore calls happily as at last the tumult dies down. "Well, we now have our three champions. I am sure I can count upon all of you, including the remaining students from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, to give your champions every ounce of support you can muster. By cheering your champion on, you will contribute in a very real—"

Harry's as confused as everyone else when the flames in the Goblet of Fire turn red a fourth time and spits out another bit of parchment. There's a long moment when Dumbledore stares at the parchment and everyone stares at Dumbledore, and then he clears his throat and says,

"Harry Evans."


	26. Chapter 26

_That's not good_.

The hall is utterly silent. Harry wonders if perhaps his name was only said by that voice he's been hearing ever since Moody cast the Imperius on him. At the staff table, both Snape and McGonagall get to their feet and go over to Dumbledore. Snape snatches the bit of parchment from him and stares at it, while McGonagall whispers urgently to Dumbledore. The rest of the Slytherin students stare at Harry.

"Harry Evans!" Dumbledore calls again. "Harry! Come up here, please!"

He gets up, walking towards the staff table on shaky legs. McGonagall's lips are pursed tightly and Snape looks angry.

"Through the door, Harry," Dumbledore says, gesturing to the door the other champions had gone through after their names had been called. He's not smiling. Harry swallows thickly, doesn't look at Snape or McGonagall, and walks over to the door, feeling every eye in the room following him.

He feels tiny as he stands in the room beyond. He knows he's small, but standing before Krum, Fleur, and Diggory, he feels even smaller and for all his bravado and his Wish Magic he realises now that he doesn't really want to compete in the tournament. He doesn't want to go up against Krum, who's the best seeker in the world, or Diggory, who's handsome and loved by most of the school, or Fleur, who he knows nothing about but she must be as good as the other two if she got picked by the goblet.

Ludo Bagman, one of the judges alongside Barty Crouch and the three headteachers, smiles broadly as he enters the side room where they're all collected. He's the only one who does.

"Gentlemen, lady, it appears we have a _fourth_ Triwizard champion."

Krum is clearly annoyed. Diggory looks only puzzled. Fleur thinks it's a joke. Harry wishes it was. He's glad when Crouch, Dumbledore, Maxime, Karkoroff, Snape, and McGonagall come charging in, just because there are familiar faces who might possibly be sympathetic to his plight.

"Did you put your name in the Goblet of Fire, Harry?" Dumbledore asks him.

"No," he answers honestly.

"Did you ask an older student to put your name in there?"

"No. I swear, professor. I didn't do it."

"Ah, but 'e is lying, of course!" Maxime cries.

"I'm not!" Harry says desperately. "I didn't put my name in!"

Snape steps forward. He's still got the slip of parchment and he holds it up between two fingers. "I have been marking his work for over two years; this is not his handwriting."

Harry's so grateful right then that he completely forgets that he doesn't like Snape.

"This is outrageous!" Karkaroff explodes. "Hogwarts cannot have two champions. It's unacceptable!"

"I don't want to be a champion!" Harry cries. "I didn't put my name in and I don't want to compete."

"You have to," Crouch says. "The rules state that anyone whose name comes out of the Goblet must compete."

"But I'm not even qualified! I'm too young!"

"Zen you should not have put your name in ze Goblet," Maxime says haughtily.

"I _didn't!_ Can't I just back out?"

"The Goblet creates a binding magical contract," Moody growls from his spot by the door.

"But there's got to be a way to disqualify people, even regularly. What about my health?" Harry asks Snape. "Wouldn't that disqualify me? Surely if Kirith said it was too risky because of my epilepsy..."

Snape glances at Dumbledore, who looks to Crouch and Bagman. Crouch shakes his head and Harry's heart sinks.

"Alastor is right. This is a binding magical contract. It cannot be withdrawn on a matter of bad health."

There's more arguing but in the end it's all for nothing. It's decided that Harry has to compete. He listens distantly as Crouch describes the first task—a challenge of daring, to see how they fare in the face of the unknown—and wonders if they'll let him out of it if he performs badly enough in the first task.

Snape walks out with him when they're dismissed.

"Sir, I didn't put my name in the Goblet. I swear I didn't."

"I believe you," he says. "I meant it when I said I recognise your handwriting. I did set you five hundred lines once."

Harry can't bring himself to smile at the memory.

"I did get past the age line," he admits. "I just wanted to see if I could, but I didn't put my name in. Who do you think could have done it?"

Snape doesn't have an answer.

He's greeted with a roar of cheers when he gets back to Slytherin. Hands grab him and haul him inside, patting him on the back and shoulders.

"So, how'd you do it?" Malfoy asks, looking almost impressed.

"I didn't. It wasn't me."

Malfoy nods. "Of course not. Butterbeer?"

"No, I don't—"

"Why the fuck didn't you tell us?" Cid says, appearing on his left as Tyler appears on his right.

"Yeah, we're supposed to be friends."

"Nice one, Evans," says Logan Sparrow, cutting off Harry's stuttering objections. "Better you than that bloody Hufflepuff. You'd better kick his arse for us."

No one believes he didn't do it, but they're Slytherins so they don't pester him. They want to figure it out themselves or trick it out of him rather than question him until he gives it up. It takes him half an hour to pull away from them all and disappear into the dorms, where he climbs onto his bed, yanks his curtains shut, and lays back against the pillows, wishing he hadn't left Kiwi at home with Sirius and Lupin because he could really do with curling up and cuddling her right now.

_You might as well make the most of it though. Sparrow's right; you'd better kick Diggory's arse, and Krum and Fleur's while you're at it._

He hasn't told anyone about the voice. He doesn't want them thinking he's mad. It's not like it's telling him to do dangerous things like he's heard happens to some people who hear voices, so he figures it's just his own thoughts being a little more vocal. He spends enough time in hospitals without getting dragged to see a psychiatrist as well.

The Slytherins might be impressed by him, but the rest of the school is very pointedly not. As soon as he, Tyler, and Cid reach the Entrance Hall the next morning and come across other students, he's subjected to dirty looks and cruel whispers, and when they enter the Great Hall, every Hufflepuff in there looks at him like he's a walking piece of dog shit. He suddenly finds himself not very hungry and he grabs a croissant from the table, mutters something to Cid and Tyler about going to the owlery, and walks straight back out again.

"Hey, Evans!"

He hunches his shoulders and doesn't stop walking, but Malfoy jogs to catch up and falls into step beside him.

"How's it going, champion?"

"Fuck off."

"Ah, like that I see. Well, I just thought you'd like to know that I believe you about not putting your name in."

Harry stops, turning to stare suspiciously at him. "Why?"

"You're the Boy Who Lived—" (Harry glances up and down the hall, but they're the only ones there) "—but you've gone to a lot of effort to conceal that. You're hardly going to ruin it now by drawing attention to yourself. You _hate_ attention; anyone with half a brain can see that."

Harry's not completely sure he trusts him, but he's grateful nonetheless. "Thanks."

"So, any theories on who did put it in?" Draco asks as they continue walking. Harry shrugs.

"Not really."

"Do you think it's someone who knows who you are, tying to bump off the Boy—" he cuts himself off as Harry glares at him. "Alright, alright. But my point stands."

"Possible, but there's not many people who know. Unless you've told someone," he remarks offhandedly while silently Wishing for him to tell the truth.

"I haven't told a soul. Who else does know?"

"None of your business."

"Dumbledore, I'm guessing," Malfoy muses as though he hasn't heard Harry. "I'm betting Snape does as well, and McGonagall. She looked stressed last night when your name came out. What about your friends? Villiers doesn't; there's no way he could keep his filthy mouth shut about that, but what about Lyle?"

Harry says nothing. Malfoy shrugs. "I'll figure it out."

Malfoy follows him all the way up to the owlery, where Harry calls down Hedwig and gives her a letter to deliver to Sirius and Lupin. Afterwards he gets rid of Malfoy by saying he's going to find Hermione and Neville. Malfoy sneers but he doesn't insult them, lifting his hand in a lazy wave goodbye as he wanders off.

Neither Hermione nor Neville are in the library. He stays there until lunch, at which point he goes to the Entrance Hall and hangs about hoping to catch them there, but leaves after only a few minutes because he can't stand the dirty looks everyone gives him, and eventually slouches off to Slytherin feeling thoroughly miserable.

Hermione and Neville come up to him just after dinner that evening, catching him in the Entrance Hall.

"We know you didn't put your name in the Goblet of Fire," Hermione tells him, apparently over, or at least choosing to ignore for now, his refusal to join S.P.E.W.

"You do?" he says, surprised.

"I looked over and saw your face when Dumbledore called your name. You looked horrified."

_Observant. I knew you kept her around for a reason._

"I was. But thank you, really. That makes a grand total of six people who believe I didn't do it."

"Who are the others? Your friends?"

He shakes his head. "Tyler and Cid are convinced I did it. They all are except Malfoy, plus Dumbledore, Snape, and McGonagall. Hopefully Sirius and Remus, too."

"Malfoy?" Neville says incredulously. "He believes you?"

"So he says. He knows about me," he adds in a low voice, edging to one side. "Not what I can do, but who I am."

"That's bad," Neville says and Hermione nods her agreement.

"Is he blackmailing you?"

"No, he's just being friendly. Still. It's why he's doing it. He wants to be pals with the Boy Who Lived. He hasn't told anyone, yet."

"How can you be sure?"

"You know me. I just need to wish hard enough."

* * *

Potions with the Hufflepuffs on Monday afternoon is tense. The two houses don't get along as it is, save for Alex Stone, but he refuses to talk to Harry and he's even cold towards Tyler.

"Sorry," he apologises with only a touch of sincerity, "but he's stealing our glory. You're my best friend and all, Tyler, but I've got to show support for my house."

Snape doesn't help matters by being particular vicious to the Hufflepuffs that afternoon, docking points for the tiniest mistakes and being scathing to the point of driving Isabelle Walker to tears.

McGonagall comes up to Harry during breakfast the following Saturday and sternly summons him to her office. He trudges after her, wondering what misery-inducing thing he's going to hear now, but when he steps into her office he smiles for the first time in a week.

"Sirius!"

"Hey, kid."

"What are you doing here?"

"I'll leave you be," McGonagall says, "but try and keep it quick."

She steps out, shutting the door behind her. Sirius and Harry sit down, facing each other.

"We got your letter and I wanted to come talk to you face to face. Dumbledore agreed I could come up for a quick visit, given the circumstances."

"You believe I didn't—"

"Course I do," Sirius cuts him off. "We both do. This is something your dad and I would have done when we were your age, but you've got more of Lily's sense in you. Have you had any thoughts about who it was?"

Harry shakes his head. "I've no idea. It's got to be someone who knows who I am though, doesn't it? Who would bother going to all the trouble for a random third year?"

"I'm afraid you're probably right about that, which doesn't leave a lot of options."

Harry thinks about telling him that Malfoy knows, but Harry's certain Malfoy hasn't told anyone and Sirius is suspicious enough of all the Malfoys as it is, so he decides to keep it quiet for now.

Sirius warns him against Karkaroff, who he reveals is a Death Eater, and tells him to trust Moody. Harry scowls at that.

"You don't like him?" Sirius asks.

"He's a bully."

"Ahh, he's been around the block, kid. He's going to be a tough teacher, but he knows his stuff."

"I don't mean that." He tells him about the incident at the start of year, but Sirius only shrugs.

"Sounds like the Malfoy kid deserved it."

"He deserved getting told off and having house points taken, not being bounced around like a basketball."

"Basketball?"

"It's... never mind. Moody's a bully. He abused his power and I'm not going to trust him _or_ Dumbledore."

* * *

When Harry notices people wearing badges pinned to their robes, he thinks for one minute that Hermione's finally managed to convince half the school to join S.P.E.W, until he realises that the badges read, in large black letters on a yellow background:

_Support CEDRIC DIGGORY_

_The REAL Hogwarts Champion_

The Hufflepuffs delight in showing him that's not all they do either. When pressed the badge turns glowing green, with the words:

_EVANS STINKS_

Within days the Slytherins are wearing their own badges. Harry doesn't know who started them (though Malfoy's smug grin gives him a pretty good idea) but he really wishes they hadn't. _HARRY EVANS: SALAZAR'S CHAMPION_ isn't the kind of thing he wants to see flashing at him ten times a day, and he's especially uncomfortable when it brings up discussion of the Chamber of Secrets and people start remembering that he was a suspect of the attacks.

His mood is improved ever so slightly when a letter comes from Kirith saying she's willing to reconsider giving him a new eye, but he'll need to take another MRI and EEG, and she's booked him in for both at the end of December.

Two weeks after Hallowe'en, Harry's Ancient Runes class is interrupted by Layla Swift coming in and telling Professor Babbling that Harry has to go down to one of the lower classrooms for photographs. The girls—he's the only Slytherin boy in their year taking Ancient Runes—cheer and he leaves feeling mortified.

Layla leads him down to one of the smaller classrooms on the second floor where the desks have been pushed aside and the other three champions are already waiting. Bagman's there too, as is a photographer, and a journalist Bagman introduces as Rita Skeeter. Harry knows the name; she's been writing articles all summer trash-talking the Ministry for what happened at the Quidditch World Cup.

Skeeter drags him out the room, ignoring his protests about not wanting to do an interview, and all but manhandles him into a broom cupboard where she sits on an upturned bucket and smiles at him.

"So. The youngest champion. Tell me, Harry, what made you enter the Triwizard Tournament?"

"I didn't."

"Of course not," Rita says dramatically and winks. "Everyone loves a bad boy, Harry."

"I _didn't_. I don't want to be in this stupid tournament."

He's not sure she even hears him. "How are you feeling about the upcoming tasks? Nervous? Excited? You're going up against students much older and more experienced than you. It must be nerve-wracking."

_You've no idea. He's like a junkie that hasn't had a fix in three days. It's ridiculous._

He has to bite his tongue to avoid telling the voice to shut up. "Look, I really don't—"

"So tell me about yourself, Harry. What do your parents think of you taking part in such a dangerous tournament? And your deformity," she adds, gaze lingering on his blind eye, "how did that come about? Birth defect? Tragic accident?" She grabs his wrist and peers at his medical bracelet. "Complications from your disease?"

"It's not a disease," he snaps, snatching his hand back. "It's a brain disorder, and my parents are dead so they probably don't give a damn."

"Ooh," she coos with false sympathy. "How _dreadful_. How did they die? How old were you? Were you there; is that how you came about your deformity?"

"I'm not _deformed_!" he yells, and the quick quotes quill that was scribbling away the entire time suddenly bursts into flames.

The door opens just as Rita's quick quotes quill drops to the floor in a pile of feathery ashes. Dumbledore stands in the doorway with his eyes twinkling and a knowing smile on his face as he sees the destroyed quill and charred parchment.

"If you're quite finished, Ms Skeeter, we'd like to start the wand weighing and we cannot do that when one of our champions is in a broom cupboard."

The wand weighing only involves giving their wands to Mr Ollivander to inspect and check they're in good working order. Harry's glad the others go first; it gives him chance to calm down.

"Ahh, yes, I remember this one," Ollivander says when Harry hands him his wand. Harry wonders if he remembers it for the same reason Harry does—because he'd gone through what felt like every wand in stock before finally finding one that worked for him.

"Hmm... well now, that is curious..."

"What is?" Harry says worriedly, and Ollivander glances at him.

"Magic leaves a mark, Mr Evans. Strong magic can wear down a wand—a poorly made wand in the hands of a wizard it's not suited to might not last a lifetime. Oh, don't worry," he adds when Harry looks startled, "I fully expect this to last you a good long lifetime. It's merely curious that it shows evidence of being used much more than one would expect from someone your age. Had I not sold it myself, I might have thought it had been in use much longer than it has been. Nonetheless," he says, flicking it and casting a spell that has champagne shooting out the end, "it's in perfect working condition."

Harry's not happy about having to stand for photographs afterwards. Ollivander's inspection has made his already sour mood even worse—not the fact that his magic is wearing his wand down, simply the fact that Ollivander expects it to last him 'a good long lifetime' when Harry knows he won't live anything close to a long lifetime, which the voice in his head delights in reminding him.

Rita Skeeter's article the next morning doesn't paint Harry in a good light. She makes him out to be some sort of over-emotional kid who entered the tournament in a desperate urge to prove himself despite his health issues, but who clearly has a death wish and an inability to control his magic—which is all the more annoying for being partially true—that's all the result of being unable to deal with the death of his parents.

His mood is improved ever so slightly by the Hogsmeade weekend on the twenty-first, just a few days before the first task. He walks down with Tyler, Cid, Tabitha, Jia, Toni Kaidkin, and Victoria Vaisey. As unpopular as being champion has made him among the rest of the students, he's become much more well-liked in Slytherin and the girls in his year, who previously didn't much care for any of them, are now keen to hang out with him and defend him against Orion Devaux, who makes snide comments about having a half-blood champion and is one of the few people in Slytherin not supporting him.

When they return, Snape stops Harry as they pass his office.

"Evans, I want a word with you."

Harry waves the others on and turns back. They've only just got back from the village and he's still got bags hanging from his wrists. He felt he deserved to treat himself after everything that happened and bought a couple of books, a new winter cloak, and an almost outrageous amount of chocolate.

Inside the office, Snape shuts the door, gestures for him to sit down, and then casts Silencing and Privacy Charms on the door.

"Erm... what's this about?"

"Dragons."

"Dragons?" he repeats blankly.

"For the first task, you have to get past a dragon."

_You're fucked._

"Why are you telling me?" he says weakly. "Teachers aren't meant to help. It's cheating."

Snape raises an eyebrow. "Evans, you're a Slytherin, for Merlin's sake."

"I'm not complaining," he adds. "Really. I'm not. A dragon?"

Snape nods. "I strongly advise you spend tomorrow thinking about what you're going to do. And... I understand your desire to keep your Wish Magic secret, but I'd much prefer your skills revealed than you dead, Harry."

"So would I," Harry says. "Thanks for telling me, sir."

He spends half the night lying in his bed and thinking about how he's supposed to fight a dragon. Or get past one, Snape had said, so he doesn't actually have to _fight_ it. Sneaking _is_ his speciality... he spent years hiding from people... but he'd rather not reveal his Wish Magic if he doesn't absolutely have to.

It's three in the morning and he's almost asleep when he realises he doesn't have to. He has another way to turn invisible and much that he hates the thought of revealing the Invisibility Cloak to everyone—it's his dad's and he wants to keep it to himself—he knows he'd rather everyone knew he had an Invisibility Cloak than everyone know he can simply Wish himself invisible.

He still spends the next day in the library, reading up on dragons. He might have a plan of action but he's not stupid enough to go up against a dragon without knowing more than the basics about them.

He's late to breakfast on Monday morning, having stayed up reading the night before and oversleeping as a result. He rushes up to the Great Hall, but comes to a halt just inside the door when silence falls over the entire room. Everyone turns to look at him and he gets an unpleasant sensation in his stomach. At the staff table, Snape gets to his feet and starts hurrying towards him, but Malfoy reaches Harry first.

"It wasn't me," he says in a murmur. "I swear to you."

"What wasn't?"

Malfoy holds out a folded up newspaper, but before Harry can take it Snape's on them and snatching it away. He grabs Harry's arm and turns him around, marching him out the hall without a word.

"Sir, what's—"

"In here," he says, roughly guiding him into an empty classroom and shutting the door behind him.

"Sir?"

"You're not going to like what you're about to read," Snape says, "which is why I don't want you seeing it in the hall where there are plenty of people that could be harmed."

"What's going on?" he asks, panic bubbling in his chest now. Snape hands him the paper and Harry snatches it from him, unfolding it and staring at the front page, which is almost completely covered by six words.

_HARRY EVANS: THE BOY WHO LIVED_


	27. Chapter 27

The windows of the classroom shatter. In the hallway, three suits of armour blow apart, sending helmets, legs, and arms flying across the hall. The paper bursts into flames.

"Malfoy," Harry growls. "I'll kill him. I should have just wiped his memory."

"You will not kill him because he didn't do it," Snape tells him.

"Who else would it be? Hermione and Neville wouldn't tell so unless it was one of the staff..."

"Despite what you feel about me, I hope you at least trust I would not do this; I _know_ you think better of Professor McGonagall than to believe she would; and much that you dislike Dumbledore, surely you realise he wouldn't have revealed it either."

"Professors Sprout and Flitwick know, don't they?"

"Sprout and Flitwick would not have told anyone. If you'd read the article before burning it, you'd have seen that it doesn't just reveal who you are, it details private medical issues, including how you came about your injuries. _Exactly_ how."

Harry goes pale. "They know about my uncle?"

Snape nods. "I think you'll find that whoever talked to Skeeter works at Saint Mungo's."

"Not Kirith. She wouldn't, would she?"

"It's possible, but no, I don't believe so."

"But then who? She's the only one that knows who I am. Harry Potter isn't the name in my file."

"Skeeter could have learned your identity from one person, and your medical issues from someone else. Whoever it was and whatever the reason, you have bigger things to worry about right now. The first task," Snape says when Harry looks at him blankly.

"Oh, that. I have a plan."

"Then you should head off to class," Snape says just as the bell rings. Harry doesn't move.

"They won't believe me if I say it's not true, will they?"

"No."

"And I suppose even I can't memory charm the whole country."

"I beg of you not to try," Snape says slowly. "I fear what you might do if you discovered that your power is that great."

Someone's repaired the suits of armour in the hall, where Harry's surprised to find Hermione, Neville, Cid, and Tyler waiting for him. Snape scowls at them all.

"Don't you have classes to be in?"

"We wanted to check he's alright," Hermione says defensively.

"Is it true?" Tyler demands. "You're the Boy Who Lived?"

"Yes," Harry mutters.

"Fuck," Cid says. "Can't believe you never told us. Where's the scar?"

Harry lets it show and then scowls when both he and Tyler peer at it. "Stop staring," he snaps. "We're meant to be in Charms. I'm fine, Hermione. I'll talk to you guys later. Meet you in the library after classes?"

"Sure," Neville says, looking nervous under Snape's glare. "See you later."

Flitwick has to tell the class to settle down when the three of them arrive, but at least he doesn't take points for them being late.

 _You really should make the most of this situation. There are perks to being a celebrity. You might not like it, but being the Boy Who Lived can be used to your advantage_.

He doesn't know what advantage that might be but he doesn't much care. He'd rather just be anonymous Harry Evans again.

* * *

"Hey, Pot- ow!"

Harry doesn't stop walking, shoulders hunched and a scowl on his face.

"Why is it," Cid says conversationally, "that everyone who tries to call you Potter trips over?"

"Guess they should be more careful."

"The guy wasn't moving."

"Floor must have been slippery."

He's glad to get to the library that afternoon. Madam Pince won't put up with anyone talking too loudly so he can sit at a table away from everyone else and not listen to them gossip.

"Was it Malfoy?" Neville asks when he and Hermione join him.

"Snape doesn't think so, but I'll find out for sure later. We think it might be someone at Saint Mungo's because of all the other stuff Skeeter wrote."

"But healers are bound by confidentiality," Hermione says seriously. "They could lose their license if they revealed a patient's details."

"Well someone thought it was worth the risk," Harry says. "There's no one else Skeeter could have got all that information from."

Malfoy approaches him in the common room that evening, protesting his innocence again and Harry believes him after silently Wishing him to tell the truth.

By morning, his anger about the newspaper takes a backseat to his panic about the upcoming task. Even though he has a plan and is (mostly) confident he can survive the day, it doesn't detract from the fact that in just a few hours he'll be standing in front of a dragon and he really doesn't want to. He hardly touches his breakfast, but when the post arrives he gets something else to distract him. Dozens of owls fly down to land on the Slytherin table, all vying for him to take their letter first.

Cid and Tyler help him untie them all and he starts opening them to find messages from complete strangers. There are sympathies for what happened to him, offers to attack his uncle, offers to pay for private medical care, offers to give him a new home (the paper said he was living with Sirius but not everyone believes in his innocence), thanks for defeating Voldemort when he was a baby, and good luck wishes for the tournament.

He finds an envelope with the Saint Mungo's seal on it and eagerly tears into that one, hoping it's Kirith replying about his eye, but inside all he finds is a small slip of parchment with a brief missive.

_Andrew Hopkins has been accused of breaking confidentiality before. – KK_

"Mr Evans, could you come up here please."

He looks up from the letter from Kirith to see that Dumbledore has been inundated with almost as many owls as he has. He gets up and goes to the staff table where Dumbledore hands him an envelope.

"These are all for you."

Harry looks at the envelope, frowning, but written on the front is _Harry Potter, Hogwarts_.

"Why did they come to you?" he asks Dumbledore.

"Names have power, Mr Evans. You haven't just been using a false name, you changed it right down to your soul. These owls knew they had to come to Hogwarts, but they couldn't find anyone called Harry Potter, so they delivered the letters to the head of the school."

He takes all the letters back to Slytherin and dumps the ones addressed to Harry Potter in the fireplace. If they can't be bothered to get his name right, he can't be bothered to read them.

He hardly pays attention in Herbology that morning or Arithmancy afterwards. At lunch he stares at his food until Snape comes to tell him that he needs to go down to the grounds.

"Are you ready?"

Harry nods, not trusting himself to speak.

"You'll do fine. There are wizards on guard to step in at a moment's notice if something goes wrong. Just do your best."

His hands shake as he stands in the tent with the other champions, but they don't look much better. Fleur is pale and clammy, Krum looks even surlier than he normally does, and Diggory paces nervously.

Harry has to wipe his sweaty palms on his trousers before putting a hand into the small bag containing the dragon models. He thinks his legs might give out when he pulls out a Hungarian Horntail and suddenly wishes he hadn't spent Sunday researching dragons. At least then he wouldn't know that Horntails are large, vicious, and can shoot flames up to fifty feet.

Sitting in the tent listening to the commentary as the other three fight their dragons doesn't help Harry's nerves. He's tempted to run away, school be damned. He'd go home, live with Sirius and Lupin for the rest of his life, what little there was left. Four years is more than five minutes, which is probably how long he'll last facing the Horntail.

The voice in his head is thankfully silent.

When it's finally his turn, the Horntail doesn't move as he steps into the enclosure, as he thought it would. He expected it to charge towards him, but it remains hunched over its eggs, yellow eyes fixed on him, vicious tail swaying slightly. He swallows, steels his nerve, and raises his wand.

" _Accio Invisibility Cloak!_ "

It seems to take an age to arrive. He left it tucked under his mattress just that morning and in the time it takes to reach him he thinks someone's nicked it and it's never going to arrive, but then he sees the fine cloth racing through the air towards him and he snatches it out of the air, throws it around his shoulders and disappears from view. He instantly feels calmer, which he knows is ridiculous because there's still a dragon in front of him, but there's a familiarity and comfort in being hidden. Now he just has to get the egg.

He Wishes the cloak to remain in place, keeping him hidden from view without having to worry that it'll slip and reveal him to the dragon. He ignores Bagman's commentary and the shouts from the spectators, eyes focused on the pile of eggs. He takes to the air, not worried about using his Wish Magic when no one can see him, and flies sideways first. Dragons are powerful creatures and he wants to be sure the cloak is enough to hide him from the Horntail before he dares approach it, but the dragon's eyes are scanning the ground in search of him and he slowly drifts forwards, his own gaze glancing between the dragon's eyes and the eggs.

The eggs are nestled between the Horntail's front legs so even invisible as Harry is, it's dangerous. For the first time in his life he's grateful that he's small. Even so, his heart's in his throat as he creeps along underneath the dragon, Wishing for it not to notice him, for his footsteps to be silent, and his scent to be unnoticeable.

* * *

Barty Crouch keeps Moody's magical eye fixed on Harry as he flies about for a bit before creeping along under the dragon, making sure his grizzled face doesn't show just how impressed he is. He's heard from Peter Pettigrew and Voldemort about Harry Evans' extraordinary powers but this is the first time he's seen it in person. He watches closely, knowing his master will want to know everything about the boy before the rebirthing ritual.

* * *

Something works. Harry gets to the eggs, grabs the golden one from amidst the pile, and then creeps out again. As soon as he thinks it's safe to, he takes to the air again, flies quickly back to the entrance of the enclosure, and only then removes his cloak and holds up the egg for everyone to see.

There's a thundering cheer. Bagman shouts praises. Harry hurries out the enclosure as dragon keepers rush in to subdue the Horntail. He can't help grinning, adrenaline from the success coursing through him. Snape comes over, not smiling but with a definitely prideful glint in his eyes.

"That was very Slytherin of you, Evans," he says, which Harry thinks is high praise indeed.

_You definitely could have done worse. Congratulation on not getting us killed._

"You have a fucking Invisibility Cloak?!" Cid asks the minute he and Tyler come running over. "First the Boy Who Lived, now this. What the hell else are you keeping from us?"

"Oh, shut up, Cid. That was incredible," Tyler says. "You must have walked right under the dragon to get that egg."

"Fucking _insane_."

"It was pretty terrifying," Harry admits, though he's still grinning.

He misses his score being revealed because the adrenaline and stress of the last few days finally drive him to seizure. Even so, he insists on joining the other champions to hear Bagman's instructions for the next task despite his shaky legs and desperate urge to lie down and rest for several hours.

"Now, just a quick few words. You've got a nice long break before the second task, which will take place at half past nine on the morning of February the twenty-fourth—but we're giving you something to think about in the meantime! If you look down at those golden eggs you're all holding, you will see that they open... see the hinges there? You need to solve the clue inside the egg—because it will tell you what the second task is, and enable you to prepare for it! All clear? Sure? Well, off you go, then!"

Cid and Tyler have gone back to Slytherin, but Hermione and Neville are waiting for him outside the tent now. Unfortunately so is Rita Skeeter.

"Harry! So glad I could catch you. Can I have a word? How did it feel facing the dragon? How do you feel now, about the fairness of the scores?"

_You should Wish her into the enclosure._

"You can have two words," Harry says. "Bugger off."

_You have no sense of excitement._

He's had enough excitement for one day, he thinks.

"That was incredible, Harry," Neville says as they walk up to the castle. "Pretending to make an Invisibility Cloak like that and then walking under that dragon. Wow..."

Harry looks at him in surprise. "That wasn't my Wish Magic. This is a real Invisibility Cloak," he says, holding up the arm over which the cloak is currently draped.

Hermione gasps. "Those are really rare though. Where'd you get it?"

"It was my dad's. Dumbledore had it, but he gave it to me Christmas my first year."

Slytherin is in full party mode by the time he gets there. He lets himself get pulled in and doesn't mind listening to their congratulations and praises as long as they let him sit in an armchair the whole time.

"Open it up then," Malfoy says after taking a look at the golden egg. "Let's see what it's all about."

Harry puts aside his bottle of butterbeer and takes it from him, sliding his fingernails into the groove and prising it open. It's empty but the moment he opens it a loud screeching fills the entire common room, making people slap their hands over their ears and shout at him to close it again. He does, ears still ringing.

"Well," Malfoy says. "Good luck fighting a banshee."

* * *

Harry goes to see Snape the day after the first task, taking the letter from Kirith with him and asking if Snape knows who Andrews Hopkins is.

"He was the one who discovered that Dumbledore's cuffs were killing you," Snape tells him. "Inform Black. He's your legal guardian; he can begin taking steps to sue Hopkins."

"You think I should do that?"

Snape raises an eyebrow. "You don't have to, but surely you want to? This is not just an issue of your identity being revealed; Hopkins gave out your private medical details. He broke confidentiality; he'll lose his healer's license for this."

The rest of the school doesn't seem to hate him so much after the first task, which makes the following weeks much better than the previous ones. While the Hufflepuffs are still vehemently supporting Diggory, they at least stop making snide comments and sneers in the hallway and some of the Ravenclaws start supporting him as much as Diggory. The Gryffindors still refuse to, but that's no surprise. They weren't about to throw away centuries of inter-house rivalry even for the Boy Who Lived.

He writes to Sirius telling him about Hopkins and also detailing the first task, and gets a letter back promising Sirius will start dealing with Hopkins immediately and congratulating him about the tournament.

Snape keeps the Slytherins behind after Potions class in the first week of December to inform them all of the Yule Ball—and the fact that they aren't allowed to go as it's open to fourth years and up only unless invited by an older student. Harry, of course, is the exception. As a champion, he has to attend, which he's none too pleased about, and he's even less pleased to hear that he's expected to open the ball with a dance partner.

"Do I have to?"

"Yes," Snape says definitively.

Harry has no idea who he wants to go to the ball with but within a week he's had invitations from several girls and a couple of boys. He turns them all down; he doesn't want to go with someone he doesn't even know the name of.

"You know you have to take someone," Tyler tells him when he turns down a Ravenclaw fourth year girl, who stomps off angrily. "You can't go alone."

"They only want to go with me because I'm the Boy Who Lived."

"Very possible, but also irrelevant. You need a partner."

"Why don't you go with me then?"

Tyler looks at him with raised eyebrows. "Is that a genuine invitation or are you just saying that out of annoyance?"

"Um... genuine?"

"You want to say that once more with feeling?"

Why not, he figures. Tyler's a friend so Harry doesn't have to worry about feeling awkward around him. He's good looking, which is a plus. Harry still doesn't have a crush on anyone—and he might worry about that if he didn't have enough on his plate to worry about—but he thinks that if he ever did, he might have one on Tyler.

"Tyler, will you go to the Yule Ball with me?"

"Sure. But just so you know, I can't dance."

"That's alright, neither can I."

* * *

The egg continues to stump Harry for a while. He takes it up to the Room of Requirement to try and figure it out where he won't annoy the rest of Slytherin and spends a while shouting at it, Wishing it to make sense, asking it questions, shaking it vigorously, and even throwing it at a wall. But he doesn't have any success until he demands, in a moment of anger, "Just speak English."

" _Come seek us where our voices sound,_

_We cannot sing above the ground,_

_And while you're searching ponder this:_

_We've taken what you'll sorely miss,_

_An hour long you'll have to look,_

_And to recover what we took,_

_But past an hour – the prospect's black,_

_Too late, it's gone, it won't come back_."

It takes him a while longer to figure out what the poem means. He takes the 'cannot sing above the ground' literally at first and thinks he's going to have to dig through the earth to find whatever it is the singers take, and spends a while wracking his brains trying to figure out what might be living underground that could take something from him, until he realises that it means in water, and then he has a whole other issue to deal with.

* * *

"I have a huge problem," he tells Hermione and Neville the afternoon of the last day of term. Classes have finished and they sit in the courtyard, cloaks pulled tight against the light snow that's falling. "I figured out what my egg means."

"That's a good thing, isn't it?" Hermione says. "Now you can start working out how to complete the task."

"Except the task is that I have one hour to retrieve something from the mermaids in the lake."

"Oh," Hermione says understandingly. "So you need to find out how to breathe underwater. There must be a spell or something."

"There's a plant," Neville says. "It's called Gillyweed. It gives you gills and webbed hands and feet. It'd be perfect."

Hermione beams. "There you are," she says to Harry. "You just need to find some Gillyweed."

"That's great, and thanks, Neville, but there's still one more problem."

"What's that?"

"I can't swim."

The Dursleys never wanted to pay for him to have lessons, living on the streets never gave him any opportunity to learn, and when he discovered Hogwarts he never thought about it. Now he really wishes he had.


	28. Chapter 28

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because it will be relevant in this chapter, please remember that many characters in this fic are teenagers who say things that are wrong and misinformed and they do not necessarily represent the knowledge of the author. Please reach the end of the chapter before deciding to rage-quit or stake me for misinformation. Also, this note is unrelated to the warning.

Cid isn't happy as he watches Harry and Tyler get ready for the ball on Christmas evening. He's not one of the lucky third years to have snagged a date.

"Why couldn't you have asked me?" he says grumpily to Harry.

"You're not pretty enough," Harry replies, trying to ignore how self-conscious he feels in his dress robes.

"Manly, though, which is more than anyone can say about him."

"Clearly Harry likes his boys pretty rather than manly," Tyler retorts. Although still very androgynous, hitting puberty and putting up with Cid's vulgarity and rude sense of humour has made Tyler a little more relaxed about his appearance. He's still likely to hit anyone that calls him a girl however.

Out in the common room, they watch others mill about, Harry trying to put off the moment when they have to leave.

"Looking good, Evans. Who's the... not a girl. You don't look so bad, either, Lyle."

Harry glances at Malfoy, who's wearing high-necked black robes that make him look like a vicar in Harry's opinion. "Thanks."

"It's Christmas, so I'm going to pretend you didn't nearly call me a girl, Malfoy."

Pansy Parkinson, hanging on Malfoy's arm and wearing frilly pink robes, glares at them both and drags Malfoy over to join the other fourth years as they leave the common room.

"I know we've teased you about it before, but I'm being perfectly serious now," Tyler says to Harry as they follow them out. "He fancies you."

"Don't be ridiculous."

"I'm not. Did you see the way he looked at you?"

"Um... normally?"

"No, he looked at you like he wanted to take your clothes off."

"He seemed pretty interested in you," Harry replies, uncomfortable with where their conversation's heading.

"Well, yeah, that's because I look good, but he's got the hots for you. I mean, he'd probably make out with me, but he wants to buy you chocolates and roses."

"If that's true, why's he going to the ball with Parkinson?"

"Didn't get up the nerve to ask you before you asked me? I don't know. But he does."

"Would you make out with him?"

Tyler shrugs. "Probably."

The Entrance Hall is milling with students in all colours of robes. Harry catches sight of Neville standing with Ginny Weasley by the main staircase, but he doesn't see Hermione anywhere. Tyler waves to Alex Stone, who's standing self-consciously beside a fifth year Hufflepuff boy who's quite a bit larger than him, and they see a few other third years that have managed to snag dates with an older student.

"Champions, over here, please!"

Harry holds out his arm to Tyler, grinning in an embarrassed sort of way, but Tyler slips his own arm through and nudges him playfully as they head over with the other champions to where McGonagall stands. Fleur Delacour is with Roger Davies, the Ravenclaw Quidditch captain; Diggory is with Cho Chang, the Ravenclaw seeker; and Krum's with—

"Hermione?"

She turns and looks as surprised to see him with Tyler as he is to see her with Krum. "I didn't know you were gay," she blurts, and then flushes bright red. "I'm sorry, that was insensitive."

"It's okay," he assures her. "I'm not totally sure I am. It's a bit complicated."

"We're just going as friends," Tyler says. "If I find a cute girl or hot guy all alone I've got every intention of ditching him. That's a joke," he adds when they both look startled.

Inside the Great Hall, they find the house tables replaced by dozens of smaller round tables, and in place of the staff table is a large round one where the judges, champions, and their partners sit. Harry ends up sat beside Percy Weasley, who's there on behalf of Mr Crouch, who's too ill to attend. Percy nods stiffly to him, but they don't speak to each other.

When they've finished eating, they all get to their feet and Dumbledore sends the student tables to sit against the left wall with a wave of his wand then conjures a platform along the right wall, upon which the Weird Sisters clump out, all wearing artfully ripped clothes and carrying instruments.

"Ready to make a fool of ourselves?" Tyler asks.

"Not really," Harry replies, but gets to his feet and moves onto the dance floor with him.

It could be worse he thinks as they stand slowly revolving on the spot, but he really wishes the rest of the students weren't all staring and he's extremely grateful when they start filtering onto the dance floor and join in, taking the attention away from the champions a little.

"Um, Tyler? About what you said earlier... you can if you want."

"What did I say earlier?"

"About ditching me for... someone else. I don't mind."

"Way to make a guy feel appreciated," he says dryly, then laughs when Harry goes red. "You get embarrassed so easily."

"I-I-I just meant, y'know, we are here as friends and if... if there's someone you fancy and you want to dance with them or anything, I don't mind. I won't be jealous or whatever. I know I'm weird by not fancying anyone and I don't want you thinking you have to stay with me just because I asked you. I wouldn't even have come if I wasn't a champion."

"You're not weird for not fancying anyone. I actually asked Marcus about this whole sexuality stuff, and he told me there's more than just gay and straight and bi."

"How can there be more than that?"

"Well there's asexual, demisexual, pansexual, and then there was this stuff about biromantic and aromantic as well."

"I don't know what any of those things mean."

"Well I didn't really understand most of it either, but I asked more about pansexual, because I'm pretty sure I'm that rather than just bi, and asexual because I think that's what you might be. It just means you don't want to have sex with anyone. You can still have romantic relationships, with like kissing and cuddling and all that sappy stuff, but you just don't have sex."

"What if I don't want a romantic relationship?"

"I think that's what the whole aromantic thing is. I don't know exactly. You should look into it."

It's not like he's completely non-sexual, Harry thinks. He has no inclination to fuck anyone, or engage in any of the other sexual activities that Cid claims are all kinds of awesome, but he still masturbates. Not as often as the other boys seem to, but he does it. He just never thinks of himself while he's doing it; his fantasies only ever involve other people, faceless figures of either gender pleasuring each other while he merely watches. He's not sure if that's normal or not and he's not about to ask, either.

"Wonder where Alex is?" Tyler muses as they stand at the drinks table later, standing on tiptoes to look around at the dancers. "I saw him earlier..."

"Maybe he went for a walk. It is kind of hot in here and they made the front lawn all fancy. Want to go out there?"

"Sure, why not? I'm just going to the bog first."

"Alright, I'll meet you out front."

A small garden has sprung up on the front lawn, complete with flickering fairy lights that are real fairies and roaming paths between rose bushes, interspaced with large stone statues. Harry waits on the front steps for Tyler and when he gets back they walk along the path. They come across Snape blasting bushes and docking points from trysting couples, and he nods a greeting to them, but they don't find Alex and his date.

"You want to head back inside?" Tyler asks. "It's getting kind of chilly."

"You mind if I stay out here? I don't really fancy going back in, but you can."

"Sure. See you later."

_You could be spending this time reading._

Harry sits on a stone bench, one hand held in front of him with a conjured blue-winged butterfly sitting on his fingers.

_You have homework to do._

The butterfly takes flight, wings fluttering rapidly as it flits around in front of him.

 _Go back to Slytherin. You're bored._ I'm _bored._

The butterfly lands on his nose and he smiles, reaching up a finger to gently nudge it off.

"Stop it... I said no, just get off..."

Harry vanishes the butterfly and turns his head to listen to the voices on the other side of the hedge he's sat in front of, frowning as he recognises the first as Alex.

"Come on," murmurs the second. "It's fine, just let me..."

"No, I don't—let go of me, I want to go back inside."

"In a bit. Don't be such a girl."

Harry stands from the bench, glances up and down the path then turns himself invisible and flies up, looking over the hedge to see Alex and his date a little way down, squeezed between the hedge and the castle. The fifth year has Alex pushed up against the castle wall and is forcing his hands under Alex's robes, ignoring the younger boy's efforts to push him away.

Harry drops down into the gap, makes himself visible and stalks forward, grabbing the fifth year's arm. "Get off him."

Alex looks immensely relieved. The fifth year sneers and shoves Harry back. "Sod off, Potter. This has got nothing to do with you."

Harry narrows his eyes and the fifth year's head jerks as if he's been punched. He staggers sideways and Alex immediately moves away, standing behind Harry, eyes wide.

"My name's Evans, and he's my friend."

He turns, taking Alex's hand and pulling him through the hedge. The other boy is shaking and Harry doesn't think it's entirely from cold.

"You okay?"

Alex nods shakily. "Thanks. You didn't have to do that."

"Yeah I did. We're friends, and even if we weren't I'd have done it."

_How very admirable. How did you end up in Slytherin when you have a hero complex that rivals a Gryffindor?_

"We are? I mean, I haven't really talked to you at all this year and I have one of those badges that say you stink."

"It's fine," Harry says dismissively. "House loyalty thing, I get it. Let's go in-"

The fifth year bursts through the hedge and knocks into the two of them. They stagger and Alex trips on the hem of his robe. Harry stays on his feet but doesn't see the fist rushing towards his face. It hits him hard and he sees stars, then he's punched in the stomach and drops to his knees, groaning. He hears Alex shouting for help and then a knee slams into his jaw and his head's tossed back, blood filling his mouth as he drops onto the path.

He rolls onto his side, spitting blood, and then Snape's crouching beside him, hands wrapping around his arms and helping him to his feet. More blood fills his mouth and he spits it out again, but he's bitten his tongue so it just keeps coming.

"Hospital Wing," Snape orders, keeping one hand on Harry's arm as he guides him through the crowd that's gathered. Harry can hear McGonagall shouting furiously from somewhere behind him, but his vision is blurry and can't quite find it in him to be glad.

_This is why we leave the heroics to the Gryffindors. We end up back in the Hospital Wing._

"Shut up," he mutters, and doesn't notice the odd glance Snape gives him.

It takes only a few taps of Pomfrey's wand to fix his tongue and his eye, which has swollen shut by the time they reach the Hospital Wing (but it's his left so at least his vision's not impaired any further than normal), but she says he has a concussion and has to stay in overnight.

Alex comes by soon after. "I'm sorry you got beat up because of me."

"It's fine. It wasn't your fault."

"Yeah, but now you've got to stay in the hospital all night."

Harry scoffs. "That's nothing new. They might as well put my name on this bed. Really, Alex, I'm fine. What about the guy that hit me? What's his name anyway?"

"Kirby Dawson. McGonagall's furious, shouting about him beating up third years and embarrassing the school in front of guests. She took fifty house points and gave him a month of detention and took him to Professor Sprout. Snape was saying something about getting him expelled but they probably won't do that."

"Shame."

Pomfrey wakes him up every few hours that night to check he's not suffering seriously from the concussion, but he's fine and she lets him go after breakfast the next morning. He's surprised to find Cedric Diggory outside the Hospital Wing, very obviously waiting for him.

"Alright, Evans?"

"Fine, thanks."

"I wanted to come by and thank you for what you did last night."

"Oh, um... you're welcome?"

Diggory smiles. "Alex told me what Dawson did to him and how you stepped in. We have this buddy system in Hufflepuff and Alex is my 'little brother' so to speak, so I appreciate you looking out for him."

"Oh, well, y'know. Anyone would have."

"No, I don't think they would. You're a good guy, Evans. I've asked the rest of the house to get rid of those badges and, er..." He glances up and down the hall "your egg, does it wail when you open it?"

"Yeah, but I figured it out."

"Ah, alright, never mind then. Thanks again. I'll see you around."

* * *

"Why does Pansy Parkinson keep glaring at you?" Cid asks Tyler later that day. They and Harry are collected in the common room with most of the other Slytherins. There's a general air of lazy relaxation as no one feels like doing much after the night before. Harry's in an armchair with a book, Tyler's lounging nearby in another, and Cid's on the floor playing exploding snap with his sister.

Tyler glances over at Pansy, who is indeed shooting him murderous looks every so often, then he looks at Harry before answering, "I might have snogged Malfoy last night."

Harry's surprised, but Cid's so shocked he drops his handful of cards and they blow up, making him curse and jump to his feet, rubbing at the burns on his thighs and glaring half-heartedly at Layla as she giggles.

"Are you serious?" he asks when he's legs have stopped burning. " _Malfoy?_ "

Tyler shrugs defensively. "He's a bit of a prat, but he's attractive. And he's a good kisser."

"He's also got the hots for Harry; the fuck's he doing kissing you? And you can stop pulling that face," he says to Layla, who's looking over at Malfoy appreciatively. "You're too young to be kissing anyone."

Layla blows a raspberry at him.

"Harry's not interested in him," Tyler says. "Why shouldn't I have a go instead?"

"Well, hang on, what were you doing snogging Malfoy when you were Harry's date?"

"I don't care," Harry says. "He can snog whoever he likes. We only went as friends."

"Everyone thinks you're dating that Hufflepuff you saved last night anyway," Layla says, and they all look at her. "Laura Madley told me so; she's a Hufflepuff in my year."

"He is not," Tyler says. "Are you?"

"No."

"Good."

* * *

Snape accompanies him to Saint Mungo's on the twenty-ninth for his EEG and MRI. They both go smoothly and he's told to await a letter with Kirith's decision.

At breakfast on the first morning back at classes, Kirby Dawson approaches Harry at the Slytherin table and stiffly apologises for beating him up. He's obviously been ordered to and Harry accepts the apology only because he knows it'll look bad of him if he doesn't, but half the Slytherin table still glare at Dawson as he walks away again.

Harry isn't really surprised to find out that Hagrid's a half-giant, but he doesn't really get why people are so bothered by it. He doesn't give a damn about the man, but he doesn't dislike him after reading Skeeter's article.

"We've come up with a solution to your swimming problem," Hermione says that same day, dropping into a chair beside Harry in the library while Neville sits on Harry's other side. "We're going to teach you."

"You're going to teach me to swim well enough to get to the bottom of the lake before the twenty-fourth of February?"

"It's not that hard," Neville tells him. "Most people learn when they're kids, so it'll be easy enough for a teenager."

"Also, you've got your Wish Magic," Hermione says. "If it comes to it, you can always just sort of Wish yourself to move through the water like you make yourself fly."

Harry looks at her in surprise, then frowns. "Why didn't I think of that?"

_Because you're an idiot._

He has to bite his tongue to avoid snottily asking the voice why it didn't think of it either.

"Harry, I was wondering about what you said at the Yule Ball..." Hermione says hesitantly.

Harry frowns. "What did I say?"

"About being gay, only you said you weren't sure. Are you bi?"

"Oh, that," he mumbles. He glances around, but there's no one nearby. Not that it really matters, but he doesn't want to discuss it in anyone's hearing. "I don't really know what I am."

"Surely you know whether you like boys or girls or both."

"I don't really like anyone. Y'know, as a... girlfriend or boyfriend or whatever. I don't fancy anyone."

"You don't fancy Tyler? Why'd you ask him to the ball then?"

"He's a friend and I had to take someone because I'm a champion. Do we have to talk about this?"

She lets it drop, thankfully, and he turns back to the topic of swimming. They suggest lessons at the lake, but Harry's having none of that. He's not making a fool of himself where everyone can see. Instead he finally tells them about the Room of Requirement, which they insist he show them immediately.

"Wow," Hermione says when they step into the Room, which has become a large swimming pool complete with foam floaties, a pile of flippers, and changing cubicles. "And this room can become anything?"

Harry nods. "It's where I slept that first year at Hogwarts. It just gave me a huge bedroom."

"This is cool," Neville says. "Definitely better than learning to swim in the lake."

Harry frowns suddenly. "I don't have any swimming trunks. Do you think I can get some in Hogsmeade?"

"Probably. There's a Hogsmeade weekend on the sixteenth, but the Room can give you some before then."

"We're not starting now, are we?"

"No time," Hermione says. "We can do it on Sunday."

Harry nods, looking at the calm water of the pool which suddenly seems quite scary.

That Friday's _Daily Prophet_ contains an article, not written by Rita Skeeter, reporting that Andrew Hopkins' healer's license has been permanently revoked as a result of his breaking patient confidentiality. The same morning, Harry gets a letter from home with the news that Hopkins did it for a bribe from an unknown person and, unwilling to go to court, agreed to a settlement and paid out two thousand galleons, which would be in Harry's Gringotts vault by the end of the month.

Sunday comes too quickly for Harry.

"I'm really not sure this is a good idea."

"You'll be fine, Harry," Hermione says. She's already in the pool, treading water and smiling encouragingly at Harry, who's sitting on the steps that lead into the shallow end. He's wearing a pair of swim shorts that make him feel incredibly skinny and pathetic, but he didn't want to wear trunks like Neville.

"I might have a seizure. I'm not supposed to swim unsupervised."

"You're not unsupervised. If you have one, we'll get you out quickly."

"We can always get Madam Pomfrey to sit in," Neville suggests, and Harry shakes his head. He's not learning to swim under Pomfrey's watch; this is humiliating enough as it is.

He doesn't even last fifteen minutes. He freaks out when they try teaching him to float on his back, convinced he's going to sink and drown even though he's still in water shallow enough that it only reaches his waist. He retreats to the steps and sits with a towel wrapped around his shoulders, only his feet in the water as he watches them swim around. They try convincing him to have another go, pointing out that he needs to be able to do it for the second task, but he shakes his head, stubbornly refusing to leave his spot and ignoring the insults the voice is sneering at him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tyler's definition of asexuality is vastly oversimplified and inaccurate. The actual definition of asexuality is an individual who does not experience sexual attraction to persons of any sex or gender. This does not mean asexual people don't have, or don't want to have, sex or that they necessarily find sex repulsive.


	29. Chapter 29

Snape doesn't look up from his marking when there's a knock on his office door, just calls for entry and writes a scathing remark on Ron Weasley's essay. He does look up when the door clicks shut again, raising an eyebrow as Harry shuffles forward, staring at the floor and fidgeting.

"Is everything alright?"

"Do you know what the second task is?"

Snape frowns. "I am not telling you it when you have the means of learning it yourself. There is a difference between cheating and pure laziness."

Harry glances up. "That's not—I already figured it out. I just... I wanted to... ask... something."

"Extra precautions are being taken in consideration of your epilepsy. Your safety is top priority."

"I can't swim," Harry blurts.

Snape sets down his quill and leans back in his chair. "Ah."

"Sir, I... I know I've been not very nice to you sometimes and I know I attacked you that time—and I'm sorry about that—" ( _No you're not,_ the voice whispers) "—but... I do trust you. Even though you didn't help me as a kid, you've helped me recently and you let me stay at your house and got me to see the healers and everything, and... please will teach me how to swim?"

Hermione and Neville are great and he does trust them, but not so much that he can relax enough to learn how to swim. He thought about getting Sirius or Lupin, but much that he likes them he hasn't known them long enough to really trust them with something like this. It has to be Snape, he realises. He might dislike him, and even that's fading, but he trusts him. Snape saved his life before, helped him through seizures, saw him bleeding to death, and supported him even when Harry hated him. Despite what he did, or didn't do, when Harry was little, when it comes to his safety now, there's no one Harry trusts more.

"I will, under the condition that you tell absolutely no one about it. Not your friends and especially not Black."

"Thank you! I won't, I promise."

"I will investigate local swimming pools. I'm sure you don't want to learn in the lake anymore than I want to teach you there."

"There's a swimming pool on the seventh floor."

"No, there—please tell me you didn't Wish a swimming pool into Hogwarts."

"I didn't. There's this room..."

_Won't this be fun?_ the voice mocks when Harry leaves. _A nice bonding experience with our greasy Head of House. Did you consider whether he actually knows how to swim? That hair makes me think he might have a mortal fear of water._

'He wouldn't have said yes if he didn't know how.'

_Well, I suppose not, but you've got more faith in the man than I do. Have you considered that he might have been the one to enter you into the tournament? Now you've given him an excellent opportunity to drown us._

'There's no 'us' and if he wanted me dead he would have said no and let me drown during the task. So just shut up.'

He probably shouldn't respond because he'll only encourage it, but it's hard to ignore voices inside one's own head.

* * *

He walks down to Hogsmeade with Cid and Tyler on the sixteenth of January, but leaves them to visit the clothes shop alone. He really doesn't need Cid making rude remarks, as he undoubtedly would, but to his horror when he's looking through the selection of swimming shorts, Draco Malfoy appears right by him, sidling up on Harry's left so he doesn't notice until Malfoy's right beside him.

"Please tell me you're not going to get the red ones."

"What's wrong with the red ones?"

"Firstly, you're too pale to wear red this bright, and secondly, you're a _Slytherin_."

"Well firstly, I don't care what you think, and secondly, it's none of your business anyway. Go away."

"No," Malfoy says, now browsing through the trunks himself. "I'm assuming this has something to do with the second Triwizard task—I saw Krum diving into the lake on my way down here—and I'm not letting you go out in front of the whole school in Gryffindor colours. Here."

He holds up a pair of emerald green swimming trunks. Harry barely glances at them. "I want shorts."

Malfoy rolls his eyes, looking through the rack but finding no shorts in green. "Then go with the navy."

"So Ravenclaw colours are fine?" Harry says snottily.

"Navy, Evans, not blue. Do you know anything about colours? Or fashion, for that matter?"

"Clothes are clothes," Harry mutters. "As long as they're comfortable and warm, what does it matter?"

In the end, he does get the navy ones, but only because they don't have the red ones in his size.

He visits the apothecary afterwards to buy some gillyweed. Malfoy tags after him.

"Don't you have your own friends to go off with?"

"Vincent and Greg have got detention, Blaise and Theo didn't want to come down, and the girls aren't talking to me because of some girl code that says they have to ignore me or it means they think it's acceptable that I ditched Pansy and snogged Lyle at the Yule Ball."

"Oh," Harry says, unwilling to pursue that topic of conversation. Tyler and Cid are still convinced Malfoy fancies him and Harry doesn't know whether it's true or not, but he doesn't want to find out and have the awkward conversation that would inevitably follow. Thankfully, Malfoy seems content to walk the rest of the way to the apothecary in silence.

Neville hadn't specified how much gillyweed he'll need, so he buys plenty just to be safe. To his annoyance he bumps into Rita Skeeter as he leaves the shop and she tries to convince him to go to the Three Broomsticks for an interview. She says the readers are desperate for 'an up close and personal piece on the Boy Who Lived'. Harry tells her the readers can get up close and personal with the _Daily Prophet_ by shoving it up their arses.

* * *

"Relax."

"I am."

"No, you're not."

"Well how can I relax when I keep sinking?"

"Relax, and you'll stop sinking."

"That's completely unhelpful. I can't do it."

"With an attitude like that, you certainly can't."

"You're not helping!"

Harry sits on the steps, feet in the water, arms crossed and face twisted into a scowl. Snape's sat lower, so he's submerged up to the chest as he considers Harry.

"Did you take the Spirit Trance Potion this summer because you weren't able to reach a trance through meditation?"

"...Yeah. Why are you asking that?"

"Were you able to meditate at all?"

"Yeah, of course I could."

"Then you know how to relax."

"Well, yeah, but I wasn't at risk of drowning then."

"Is that what you're afraid of, drowning?"

"I'm not afraid, I just don't want to."

_What's that rhyme the Muggle kids used to sing? Liar, liar, pants on fire..._

"I'm not going to let you. I'm perfectly capable of hauling you out of the water, I know how to resuscitate a person, and that door leads straight into the Hospital Wing in the event that, Merlin forbid, something I can't handle does occur."

Harry looks at the second door in the room, which he assumed lead to some showers or something. "It does?"

"Yes. I am not an idiot, Harry. I was not going to teach an epileptic person how to swim without taking proper precautions. You are not going to drown. So are you ready to try again?"

Relaxing, it turns out, is the hardest part. When he eventually relaxes enough to float, the rest comes fairly easily and by the time Snape says they'll stop for the day, he can swim the width of the pool without touching the bottom.

"We will do this again next Sunday; you'll need to be confident swimming underwater for the task. Have you figured out how to breathe yet?"

Harry nods, Wishing his hair dry then, at Snape's request, doing the same for him so no one will question the eternally greasy-haired professor wondering around Hogwarts with wet hair in the middle of a Sunday afternoon. "Gillyweed. I already bought some."

"Good. Do _not_ come back here to practice alone. If I found out you have, you'll be spending every Saturday until the end of the year in detention."

* * *

"YES!"

Heads turn all across the hall to look at Harry, clutching a letter in his hands and grinning so widely he thinks his face might split. He laughs with pure joy, jiggling in his seat, too delighted to keep still.

"What the fuck, Harry?" Cid says from next to him, rubbing his ear. "Think you burst my eardrum."

"I can get an eye! I can get an eye!"

* * *

By the time the 24th of February comes about, Harry's confident enough in the water that his worries are mostly focused on finding the stolen item before the time limit, and the possibility of having a seizure while he's under. He's researched the gillyweed and figured out how much he'll need to last him an hour, but takes an extra handful in his shorts pocket just in case; he's learnt the spell to defeat grindylows; and he's made a waterproof tracking arrow which he attaches to his medical bracelet with a bit of string. He's not totally sure how effective it will be; he's written _Harry Evans' stolen item for second Triwizard task_ , but it'd be a lot easier if he knew what they'd taken. He checks his trunk in the morning but everything is in it; he sincerely hopes that they haven't decided to take something from home, because he'll be mortified if he gets into the lake and finds they've got Kiwi—not to mention furious if they have and the lake water ruins her fur.

When he gets to the lake, as well as the judges and other champions, Madam Pomfrey and an unfamiliar woman are there. As the stands across the lake fill up with spectators and the champions get ready, Dumbledore beckons Harry over to the judges table and introduces him to the woman.

"Mr Evans, this is Amy Winchester, an emergency response healer."

"Hi, Harry, nice to meet you," Amy says with a smile, shaking Harry's hand. She's an unremarkable looking woman with mousy-brown hair tied up in a ponytail, face free of make-up, and wearing a pair of tracksuit trousers over a red and white swimsuit. She's got a small sports bag hanging from one shoulder.

"Miss Winchester will accompany you into the lake. She is there purely for the instance that you have a seizure; she has a portkey that will bring you both back to shore immediately. She is not permitted to assist you in any other way and you must not ask her to, as she has agreed to take Veritaserum at the end of the task to tell us if you asked for help. If she assists you in any way except for medical reasons, you will automatically receive no points for this task. Is that clear?"

Harry nods. "Yes, sir."

Amy tells him she'll be following him closely and shows him the hand signal he's to use if he needs her to get him out of the water, as well as ones for 'wait', 'go', 'up' and 'down', and then they and the other champions line up along the edge of the lake. Harry self-consciously strips to his swimming shorts while Amy puts her trousers in the sport bag and takes out a pair of flippers. Ludo Bagman amplifies his voice to introduce the task, taking a moment to mention Amy and explain why she's there, and Harry takes out his gillyweed, checks his still got the spare portion, and waits for the countdown.

Amy casts a spell that creates a large bubble around her head and although she doesn't have webbed hands like the gillyweed gives Harry, her flippers make her able to keep up with him fine. He swims out a little way towards the centre of the lake before pausing to activate his tracking arrow. Amy watches him curiously but says nothing, and Harry's glad when the arrow responds to his command, pointing further towards the centre of the lake. He hasn't bothered with putting a distance marker on it, nor does he specify for it to direct him, just lets it point directly (he hopes) to the stolen object, figuring anything more complicated is hardly necessary for in the lake.

He gets caught by a few grindylows but they're easily dealt with, and with the tracking arrow he comes up to the mermaids' dwellings shortly after hearing the snatch of song that says half his time has passed.

The stolen items turn out to be people—Hermione, Tyler, Cho Chang, and a young girl Harry assumes is Fleur's sister. For a brief moment he wonders if he's supposed to save Tyler or Hermione before realising that there's no one else that Tyler would be there for. He swims up to him, draws his wand, aims it at the weeds tying Tyler down, and casts the Cutting Curse. It slashes through the weeds and Harry wraps a hand around Tyler's arm, but doesn't swim up just yet, instead looking at the other hostages then around for any sign of the other champions.

_Don't even think about it. You've got yours, just go._

He decides to agree with the voice this one time. It's up to the other champions to save them, not him, and even though he's no longer completely terrified of drowning (he'll admit it to himself even if not to anyone else) he'd still much rather be on land than in water.

Fleur's already back on shore, having been forced to retire because of the grindylows. Harry's gillyweed is still in effect so he has to stay in the water, lying in the shallows with his gills submerged as he waits for it to stop working. Amy and Tyler get out and Tyler's instantly ambushed by Madam Pomfrey, wrapped in a blanket and forced to drink a potion that causes steam to gush from his ears, while Amy takes a towel from her bag, wraps it around her waist and goes to the judges table to take the Veritaserum.

The gillyweed wears off by the time the other champions return with their hostages and Harry gets wrapped in a towel and given a potion as well, which is hot enough to almost burn his tongue, but at least it chases away the chill that he starts to feel as soon as the gillyweed wears off. The mermaids return with Gabrielle Delacour, who Harry was correct to guess was Fleur's sister, and then the judges have a brief conference before announcing their scores.

"No problems with swimming now then?" Hermione asks Harry quietly while the judges are talking, brushing a beetle from her hair and speaking only loud enough for the two of them. Krum watches them with narrowed eyes.

"I still prefer flying, and walking, and pretty much anything else, but yeah, I did fine."

Harry comes first and his total points now put him in the lead for the cup, with Diggory in second, Krum in third, and Fleur fourth.

"Congratulations, Harry," Amy says afterwards, coming to shake his hand again. "It was nice meeting you and I'm glad I didn't have to do anything more than just accompany you."

"Me too. Thank you for coming."

"The rest of the house'll be happy," Tyler says as they head back to the castle. "Looks like it's going to be a Slytherin victory for Hogwarts."

"There's still one more task yet," Harry reminds him, but he's feeling pretty confident about winning as well. He's starting to wonder why he ever objected to competing in the first place.

* * *

"You might want to see this."

Harry takes the copy of _Witch Weekly_ that Jia hands him a week after the second task and looks at the article on the centre page. He's not sure whether to be embarrassed or angry as he reads the short piece that claims he's a two-timing cheater who's dating both Tyler and Malfoy. The voice in his head thinks it's hilarious.

Pansy Parkinson slaps him, right in the middle of the crowded common room. No one stops her and several people clearly agree with the action.

" _You two-timing piece of half-blood scum!_ " she shrieks, and slaps him again when he opens his mouth to defend himself. "How dare you treat Draco like this? You just wait until his father hears about this, then—"

"My father's likely already heard," Malfoy says, coming out of the boys' corridor, "and I don't need you defending me, Pansy."

"Draco—"

"Have any of you actually bothered to check the facts before you all started thinking I'm some poor Hufflepuff sod who's getting messed about?" Malfoy asks the room at large, and several people look away. "Evans and I aren't dating. We never have dated. We're friends, nothing more."

"Just for the record," Tyler says from where he's sprawled in a chair, "the same goes for me. Harry and I haven't actually dated. Seriously, I've gone further with Malfoy than I have with Harry."

Pansy huffs and turns away, but she doesn't apologise to Harry. He spends all day listening to people gossip about him and is sick of it very quickly. He seeks solace in the library, but even there he's not safe.

"You would tell us if you were going out with someone, wouldn't you?"

Harry lowers his book and looks across the table at Hermione. "You've seen that article in _Witch Weekly_."

"Is it true?"

"No, it's not true. I'm not going out with anyone, Hermione."

"Okay," she says, dumping her bag on the table and sitting down. Harry watches her take a large Arithmancy text from her bag then some parchment, a quill, and an inkpot, and sets herself up to begin working.

"If I was going out with Malfoy, would you stop being my friend?"

"Why would you? He's a horrible person."

"There are worse people in Slytherin—in school," he says, thinking of Kirby Dawson.

Hermione looks at him, worrying at her lip for a moment, then asks, "Do you want to go out with him?"

"I don't want to go out with anyone, but if I did, would you stop being my friend?"

"Oh, of course not. We've been friends for years, Harry. I wouldn't dump you just because you wanted to go out with Malfoy, but that doesn't mean I'd approve and I certainly wouldn't hang out with him."

"I wouldn't expect you to," he replies with a smile, then notices Krum entering the library. The other champion looks around, notices Hermione and Harry, and immediately makes his way over to their table. "Your boyfriend's coming over. He doesn't look very happy."

Hermione looks around and gives a smile. "Hello, Viktor."

"Hello, Herm-own-ninny. May I join you?"

"Oh, um..." She glances at Harry, who shrugs. "Yes, I suppose."

Krum pulls out the chair beside her, sitting down and ignoring Harry completely.

* * *

After the article revealing Harry as the Boy Who Lived, the letters from strangers tapered off after a couple of weeks, but the _Witch Weekly_ article brings more, most of which aren't friendly. Most of them just call him names and insult him for being a cheating scumbag, but others get extremely vicious towards him and defensive of Malfoy and Tyler (mostly Malfoy as his name is better known). He even gets a few howlers. Unfortunately many people are still addressing their letters to Harry Potter so a couple of howlers burst open at the staff table. Dumbledore takes it all in stride; when Harry mentions that he doesn't want any of those letters, Dumbledore agrees to burn them for him instead of calling him up to the staff table on the mornings they come.

The school's reaction to the article is more complicated. On the one hand, they want to vilify Harry for being a two-timer, but doing so means they have sympathy for Malfoy, who's not particularly popular among the rest of the school. (People seem to forget that Tyler's as much a supposed victim as Malfoy is.) The Gryffindors solution is to completely ignore it all, deciding that Slytherin drama is not worth their attention. The Hufflepuffs, being more concerned with loyalty, would rather be thought to have sympathy for Malfoy than side with a cheater. The Ravenclaws are the only ones who take the time to find out if anything in the article is actually true or not.

The entire thing comes to a head a week later when Malfoy and Tyler, in what Harry later discovers is a planned event, get caught enthusiastically making out in a broom cupboard in the Entrance Hall right before dinner one day. The two supposed victims of Harry's treachery being caught together confuses things enough that the rest of the school decide to take after the Gryffindors and ignore the entire tangled mess.


	30. Chapter 30

Kirith Karpel sends a booklet on various magical eyes with her letter. Harry looks through it, has a discussion with Snape, and writes home before eventually deciding that he'll get one that can look through things and one that's normal. The magical one won't be as large and obnoxious as Moody's, which Kirith mentions was given before research progressed to more regular looking fake eyes. He only wants the magical one, but Snape informs him he has to have a normal one for both the third Triwizard task and for his exams—especially his OWLs and NEWTs when he takes them—as the magical eye can be used to cheat. He sends a letter to Kirith with his decision and it's arranged for him to have them fitted on the fourteenth of April, in the Easter holidays.

He also has to sit, squirming with embarrassment the entire time, through a lecture from Snape on appropriate behaviour when he has a magical eye, and that if he uses it for spying on people then he'll be forbidden from wearing it at school. Harry has absolutely no intention of using his eye for anything that Snape's implying, despite Cid's vulgar suggestions about what he would do if he had an eye that could see through things.

Snape takes him to Saint Mungo's, but Sirius meets them there. Harry's almost shaking from nerves and excitement and he's grateful when the two men don't start insulting each other. They merely acknowledge each other's presence then Snape wishes Harry luck and tells him he'll see him tomorrow and floos away again.

"Ready, kid?" Sirius asks him.

"Yeah," he says nervously.

As well as Kirith, Harry's introduced to a neuro-healer called Novak and they describe the procedure to him. He'll be given a Calming Draught and a Pain Suppressant then they'll remove his left eye. Had he not wanted a magical eye, they would have left it and simply created the nerves, but as he would be changing his eyes he needed them both to be false. Afterwards Novak would work on making the nerves and connecting them to the two eyeballs, while Kirith sits to speak with Harry and conduct small tests to make sure that the new nerves don't interfere with any other parts of his brain, and to be on guard for a seizure. If he has one that lasts even seconds during the nerve creation, it could seriously interfere with the procedure, mess up the new nerves, and cause other damage in his brain.

"It's not half as scary as it sounds," Kirith assures him. "We've done this plenty of times before with absolutely no trouble. You'll be back at Hogwarts tomorrow and disgusting your friends by taking your eyes out at the dinner table."

Harry's not sure if Kirith is right that it's not as scary as it sounds, or if that's just the Calming Draught doing its work. Either way, he's perfectly relaxed as he sits in the chair, Novak standing over him and Kirith in front of him. He feels nothing when they take out his eye and when they're making the nerves he gets occasional flashes of colour or random images in his vision, but they say that's normal.

The voice remains completely silent throughout the procedure, for which he's grateful.

"Okay, you're going to get a lot more flashing images now," Novak tells him when they're about to cast the spell creating a connection between his new nerves and the eyeballs, "but it'll be of the room. You're going to see doubles and it might be disorientating, but it shouldn't last long. We've done the hardest part now. So you ready?"

"Yeah."

They do the normal one first, slipping the eyeball into his socket and then casting the spell. He sees four of everything as Novak's chanting the spell and it takes a few minutes to fade to normal when he's finished. Novak does a complete eye exam afterwards, getting him to read a short extract, identify pictures, and check his peripheral vision. The entire room seems much bigger now he has greater peripherals and he wonders how much of the world he's missed by only having one working eye, wonders how many things have been happening on his left that he's never noticed.

When Novak's satisfied it's all working fine, he pops the eye out and puts it in a little pot filled with a special potion that keeps it clean, then puts in the magical eye. The spell connecting the nerves for this one is longer and the disorientation worse as images start coming to him not just of the room but of things outside it. He can see people walking along corridors, almost like seeing coloured ghosts, and looking at Kirith is incredibly disturbing. He can see the woman, but also see through her clothes, and through _her_ to the wall beyond, though that's as far as the x-ray vision goes; the magic only allows him to look through so many layers. It takes longer for the double vision to fade this time and the test afterwards takes longer as Novak checks his range of extra vision. When Harry has to look at him or the other people in the room, he keeps his gaze fixed firmly on their faces, which Novak notices.

"You'll quickly learn to control what you see," he tells him, and Harry feels his face flush red. "It's not difficult and the novelty of it will wear off soon enough. You should find a comfortable level that will become the norm, and then you just concentrate to increase or decrease your field of vision."

Although the procedure goes fine and by dinner he's perfectly ready to go back, they want to keep him in overnight. Kirith thinks the stress of the procedure might trigger a seizure and they want to make sure it doesn't affect the newly created nerves if he does.

"So how does it feel?" Sirius asks him when he's set up in a bed on the ward.

"Weird," Harry answers honestly. He's still got the magical eye in; he wants to get used to it as much as possible before he returns to Hogwarts.

"But you're happy with it?"

_Absolutely_ , purrs the voice in his head. _This extra vision is remarkable. I expect it to come in use a great deal._

"Definitely," Harry says aloud. Sirius grins, watching the false eye spin in its socket. Harry finds it simultaneously fascinating and disturbing to look through his own head.

"Shame you couldn't get that one green as well," Sirius remarks as the eye looks forward again, showing the electric blue iris. It's the size and shape of a normal eye, unlike Moody's, but still very obviously magic just by its colour. His normal one, however, is almost the exact same shade of green as his right eye and only someone looking closely would be able to tell it's fake when it's in.

He seizes during the night without ever waking up. In the morning Kirith does an EEG and shows Harry again how to remove and put in his eyes, making sure he can do it himself, and gives him a leaflet on proper eye care, then she declares him perfectly fine and free to go.

He still has to concentrate to not look through people's clothes by the time he floos back to Hogwarts, but at least he can do it. Pomfrey greets him with a smile and asks how he is and he forces a smile back and says he's great then hurriedly leaves, trying to forget the glimpse of her wrinkled body that he'd seen before he could control himself.

He's instantly the centre of attention in Slytherin, with people asking how it feels, what he can see, and threats about what'll happen to him if anyone thinks he's looking through their clothes or into the bathrooms. He assures them vigorously that he'll do no such thing and obliges when they want to see him take it out and put in the other one, which draws disgusted noises from a few of them.

_Clothes, bathrooms... they're all so obsessed with their bodies. There are so many more things we can use this for; who cares about their bodily privacy?_

Harry ignores it. The voice has already made several suggestions on what he could do, but as uninclined as he is to spy on people in showers, he's even less inclined to break into the Ministry and spy on people there.

* * *

At the end of May, Harry and the other champions are called down to the Quidditch pitch where they find a maze being grown, much to the horror of Cedric Diggory, though Ludo Bagman assures him the pitch will be back to normal after the task, for which they'll have to get to the centre of the maze, fighting past creatures from Hagrid, spells, and various other obstacles.

"'E will of course 'ave to remove zat eye," Fleur remarks when Bagman asks if they have any questions.

"Ah, yes, Mr Evans, you'll not be permitted to use your magical eye during the task."

"Yeah, I have a normal one as well."

"'Ow will we know zat you are not wearing zis one?" Fleur demands, clearly sceptical about Harry's honesty.

"The other one's green."

"The judges will ensure he's not cheating," Bagman says hurriedly before they can dissolve into a full blown argument. "Are there any more questions?"

Harry leaves the pitch feeling confident that he'll win the tournament. He's sure he can defeat anything he comes across and navigating the maze will be easy enough with a tracking arrow. He doesn't ask if he's allowed to bring anything with him; he figures that if they weren't, Bagman would have specified.

_We've got this tournament won already. You really ought to start thinking about what you're going to do with the prize money, and that two grand you got from the healer that sold you out to Skeeter, and that fortune in your vault. You've only got three years left to live and I highly doubt you're going to have a child in that time, so you should spend it on something worthwhile. That money won't be any use to you in hell._

"Can I get rid of you in hell?" he growls as he enters the Entrance Hall, then realises he's spoken aloud when Diggory looks at him, startled. "Sorry, talking to myself," he mutters, and hurries off to the Slytherin entrance to the dungeons.

_I can see Skeeter's next headline now: Harry Evans, the Boy Who Lived in Madness_.

"Shut up."

* * *

He falls asleep in History of Magic the following Monday and dreams about Voldemort. He sees him in a darkened room with Wormtail, talking about someone who was killed and mentioning that Wormtail will not be fed to the large snake curled on the floor, that Harry will be fed to it instead, and then Voldemort lifts a wand and murmurs, " _Crucio!_ "

"Harry! _Harry!_ "

He's lying on the floor of the classroom, clutching at his scar, which is hurting so much it brings tears to his eyes, and he can see through to the classroom below where McGonagall's teaching a class of first years. He jerks up, blinking and forcing his vision to limit itself to his own classroom. His classmates are all staring at him and Tyler and Cid are crouched over him, looking worried.

"Sir, I'll take him to the Hospital Wing," Tyler says to Binns.

Harry doesn't argue with him, just gets up and lets Tyler guide him out the classroom.

"You okay? That wasn't like your normal seizures."

"It wasn't a seizure," Harry tells him, rubbing at his scar. "I fell asleep and had a dream, that's all."

"Seems more like a nightmare to me."

"Yeah. Look, you don't need to walk me to the Hospital Wing."

Tyler snorts. "Are you kidding? I'm not passing up the opportunity to skip out on History class."

Harry can hardly argue with that; it might be his favourite subject but Binns is a terrible teacher.

Pomfrey gets him a pain reliever for his headache and insists on sticking him in a bed and checking him over. Kirith said to keep a closer check on him after seizures for a while after the nerve creation, just to make sure there are no complications. He doesn't mind; he's used to being poked and prodded by healers by now so he just sits there and lets her get on with it.

He writes home about the dream and his scar hurting. A day later, he gets called up to Dumbledore's office where the headmaster asks him to describe the dream in more detail, then asks him if the scar hurt any other times lately. Harry mentions the time in the summer when he'd woke up with it hurting, and Dumbledore frowns pensively, pacing the floor until Harry clears his throat.

"My apologies," Dumbledore says quietly and sits back at his desk.

"Sir, do you know why my scar's been hurting?"

"I have a theory," he answers slowly. "It is my belief that it hurts when Lord Voldemort is near you, or when he is feeling a particularly strong surge of hatred."

"Why?"

"That is no ordinary scar, Harry. You and he are connected by the failed curse."

"So that dream I had, that really happened?"

_Oh well done, genius._

"It is possible. Probable, I would say."

"Do you think Voldemort's getting stronger?"

The voice in his head is silent. Harry thinks it's as interested in Dumbledore's answer as he is.

"Yes," Dumbledore says. "I think he may be."

* * *

His confidence about the third task lasts ten days, right up until he's in the library researching spells he might need to know and Neville idly mentions Boggarts and the possibility of there being one in the maze. Harry seeks Snape's help again.

"Sir, do you know what happens when you stab a Boggart?"

Snape stares at him for a moment then drawls, "I have end of year exams to write; I do not have time for guessing games."

"What? No, that's not—I realised that there might be Boggarts in the maze in the third task."

"So you plan to stab it if there is? Evans, you're a powerful wizard."

"And my worst fear is being as powerless as a Muggle. I can't fight a Boggart with magic, not even Wish Magic."

Snape frowns. "Evans, the man—"

"It doesn't matter," Harry interrupts. "I'll let you get back to writing exams. Sorry to bother you."

"Evans, sit down."

Snape's tone broaches no argument. Harry sits, staring at his hands.

"Who was the man that your Boggart turned into?"

"No one important."

"You are a terrible liar, Harry."

"It was no one. Just someone I met once. He's not a danger to me if that's what you think."

Snape clearly doesn't believe him, but he realises Harry's not going to talk. "I don't know what would happen if you stabbed a Boggart, but I imagine it would give you enough time to run away."

* * *

The morning of the third task dawns brightly and brings with it another unpleasant news article from Rita Skeeter. At first Harry reads it with only a vague interest in seeing what crap she's writing now, but then it mentions his leaving History of Magic a few weeks back, complaining about his scar hurting and, to his absolute horror, claims that Harry talks to himself on a regular basis and speculates the possibility that between Voldemort's failed killing curse and Vernon's abuse, it's entirely possible that he's insane.

"Hey, Evans, how's your head? You feeling all right? Sure you're not going to go berserk on us?"

Harry looks over at the Gryffindor table where Ron Weasley and Seamus Finnigan are laughing and holding their own newspaper. Harry lets his magical eye rolls back in its socket so only the white is showing and cocks his head to one side to stare unblinking at them. The newspaper in Ron's hand crumbles to dust.

"Be careful if I were you, Weasley," he calls back to them. "You might just set me off."

"I'm not sure that's the best way to convince people you're not crazy," Tyler says. "And how did you make the newspaper do that?"

"I wished for it," he answers vaguely, making Tyler furrow his brow in confusion. "It's not like anyone will believe me anyway."

"We know you're not crazy," Malfoy says from a few seats down. "Well... mostly."

"Thanks," Harry says dryly, and Malfoy smirks.

Snape comes up to Harry just as he's finishing eating and tells him the champions are congregating in the chamber just off the hall to greet their families, who have come up to watch the last task. The scowl on his face tells Harry that Sirius and Lupin are already there and he shovels down the rest of his breakfast, says goodbye to Tyler and Cid, and hurries off to the side room. He's the first champion there but he ignores the other adults in the room and goes straight to Sirius, grinning at him.

"Hey, kid."

"Hey. Didn't Remus come?"

"Full moon last night; he didn't quite feel up to coming today, but he says good luck."

"That's okay," Harry says quickly, not wanting to seem like he considered Lupin's health less important than him. "I'm glad you're here."

They spend the morning walking around the grounds, Sirius telling him stories from when he was at Hogwarts and the things he, James, Lupin, and Pettigrew got up to. Harry hangs onto his every word, delighted to hear stories involving his dad and the occasional one involving Lily, who hadn't started dating James until their seventh year.

They return to the Great Hall for lunch, where Sirius starts across the hall.

"Um, Sirius? Where you going?"

Sirius pauses, looking at Harry then glancing at the Gryffindor table then at the Slytherin one. "Right. You're not a Gryffindor."

"Nope."

"You're going to make me sit at the Slytherin table, aren't you?"

"Well, I can't sit anywhere else."

"Oh, Merlin, forgive me. C'mon then."

They sit on the end so Sirius at least doesn't have to sit next to anyone but Harry. Cid and Tyler join them and Malfoy somehow manages to get a seat beside Harry despite being late to lunch. Sirius gives him a dirty look over Harry's head. Malfoy pretends not to notice.

"Nice to see you again, cousin."

"You're cousins?" Tyler asks.

"First cousins once removed," Malfoy clarifies.

"Unfortunately," Sirius says.

"So, Mr Black, what's it like in—ow!"

Harry glares at Cid, who reaches down to rub his leg.

"Don't call me that," Sirius says, pretending he doesn't know what Cid was going to ask. "Mr Black sounds old and responsible."

"Responsible you're definitely not," Harry quips, grinning. "But old..."

"Watch your mouth, kid. I'm young enough to—"

"Sirius Black!"

"Such an honour!"

"We're very interested in you, sir."

"Oh, yes, absolutely. Incredible wizard."

"Can we interest you in a toffee?"

"Custard cream?"

"I wouldn't if I were you," Harry warns Sirius, eying the Weasley Twins suspiciously. Malfoy, Cid, and Tyler are looking equally suspicious. "They're pranksters."

"And I doubt they very much like me," Sirius says, looking at the treats in the twins' hands. "I did scare the crap out of their brother last year."

"Did you?" Fred says.

"I think I remember something about a break in," George muses.

"Oh yeah, now you mention it..."

"Terrified poor Ronniekins."

"But surely you wouldn't think, sir, that we'd dare to try trick a known criminal."

George shakes his head dramatically. "Terrible risk, that would be. Wouldn't dare. Not even for our own blood."

"I don't believe that for a second," Sirius says good-naturedly. "Remus told me about you two. You were good enough to get your hands on the Map and figure it out; you've probably got the nerve to take a little revenge for your kid brother."

Fred and George snatch their hands back, the treats disappearing into pockets as their faces turn serious. "You know about the Map?"

"What map?" Tyler asks curiously.

Harry looks at the twins in surprise. "They had the Map?"

" _You_ know about the Map?" George says.

Cid looks confused. Malfoy looks intrigued. Tyler looks annoyed. "What map?"

"My map," Sirius says with a grin.

" _My_ map," Harry corrects. "You gave it to me."

"Excuse you," George says, "I think you'll find that was our map first, and we'd quite like it back."

"You lost it," Sirius replies. "Remus confiscated it, and it's Harry's by right anyway."

"That map has to be earned," Fred counters. "He can't claim it just because you gave it to him."

"How did _you_ get it anyway?" George asks suspiciously.

"Remus gave it to me, and I gave it to Harry, who earned it by right of blood."

"Right of blood?" George repeats with a frown, and then his jaw drops. "No way!"

"Not possible," Fred says.

"Weasleys, move along," McGonagall says, walking down between the Slytherin and Ravenclaw table to where they are. "Classes are starting soon."

"We've got a free period," Fred says without taking his eyes off Harry. "Are you telling us—"

"—that Evans is related to the Marauders?"

"The Marauders?" Tyler repeats, now looking extremely annoyed that he doesn't know what's going on.

"Oh, good heavens," McGonagall mutters. "This is the last thing I need. Weasleys, move along. Mr Evans, I'm sure your godfather would like to go somewhere else."

"I'm alright here actually, professor," Sirius says with a grin. "You're right he's related to the Marauders. Boys, meet the son of James Potter, better known to his friends as Prongs."

The twins' jaws drop. McGonagall looks like she wants to bang her head against a wall.

"Will someone please tell me what's going on?!" Tyler demands.


	31. Chapter 31

"What are you doing talking to _them_?"

Harry scowls, his magical eye turning to watch Ron leave the Great Hall and approach where he, Sirius, and the twins are standing in the Entrance Hall after McGonagall insists they move.

"It's called having a conversation," Fred replies. "Don't you have a class to get to?"

"He's a murderer, and _he's_ crazy."

"He's innocent," Harry retorts, "and I'm not crazy."

" _He_ has a name," Sirius says, frowning slightly. "Why are you calling my godson crazy?"

"Haven't you seen today's paper?" Harry asks him. "Skeeter wrote another article about me, saying I'm insane."

Sirius scoffs. "The crazy ones are the people who believe anything that woman writes."

_Do you think he'd still say that if he knew you heard voices?_

' _A_ voice,' Harry thinks. 'And I'm ignoring you today.'

_I do believe that sounds like a challenge._

"Just because the papers say you're innocent doesn't mean you are," Ron says.

"Do you really think Dumbledore would have let me into the school if I wasn't innocent?"

"You tried to kill me."

_Shame he failed, don't you think?_

"I wasn't trying to kill you, I was just trying to get your rat. I realise I didn't go about it in perhaps the right way, and I'm sorry for that."

"My rat? What would you want with Scabbers?" Ron asks just as the bell for afternoon classes rings.

"I wanted to kill him."

"Sirius, you're supposed to be trying to convince him you're not a crazy criminal," Harry says.

_Oh don't spoil the fun._

"Twenty points from Gryffindor. You three are meant to be in classes."

Everyone but Harry turns a glare on Snape.

"Don't be a git, Snape," Sirius says, and the three Weasleys look at him in surprise, the twins clearly struggling not to grin. "The twins have a free period and the bell's only just rung."

"Which is when classes begin. You two should be in the library or your common room, not loitering in the hallway, and you," he says to Ron, "should be in class. Move along, all of you."

Ron slouches off with a scowl. The twins ask Sirius to come with them to the library and he readily agrees. Snape watches them go, hatred twisting his features.

* * *

"Professor _Lupin_ was a Marauder?"

"You know what they say about the quiet ones," Sirius replies with a grin.

"So if you're Padfoot, Evans' dad is Prongs, and Lupin's Moony, who's Wormtail?"

Sirius' face darkens instantly. "Wormtail's a treacherous rat who lost the right to call himself a Marauder long ago."

Fred and George glance at each other and decide it's safest if they don't ask further.

Harry's content to sit in the library for the afternoon, reading a book while Sirius and the twins exchange stories about pranks, and the twins reveal their ambition to start a joke shop and the ideas they've already come up with. Unfortunately he struggles to focus on eighteenth century goblin wars when the voice is giving a running commentary on Sirius and the twins' discussion, insulting the twins' inventions, insulting Sirius for thinking they're any good, and making snide remarks about how many of their pranks sound a lot like bullying. He's glad when the bell rings and the twins have to leave to go to class.

"What you reading?"

"Goblins wars," Harry answers, closing the book and pushing it away, "but I couldn't really concentrate."

"Nervous about the task?"

Harry shrugs. "Yeah, I guess."

"I'm sure you'll do fine, kid. Sounds like the easiest one to me."

"Yeah. That reminds me, I need to change my eye before it starts."

"Where is it, back at Slytherin? Let's head down and do that then."

When they get there, Sirius surprises Harry by saying, "Hasn't changed much. You think me and your dad never snuck in here? We put pink dye in the shower heads in our seventh year."

_Bullies_ , sing-songs the voice in his head.

He makes his tracking arrow while he's there and takes the pocket knife that Sirius gave him for Christmas. Sirius watches him pocket both and then take his eye from the drawer of his bedside cabinet and pop out his magical one.

"Are you allowed to take those into the maze with you?"

"They never said we _couldn't_ take things into the maze," he answers, slipping the normal eye in and blinking until it settles in place.

"Fair enough."

Sirius doesn't make such a fuss about sitting at the Slytherin table during dinner. When Harry and the other champions leave to go down the Quidditch pitch, Sirius gives him a one armed hug and wishes him luck. Applause and cheers follow him out and he inhales shakily as he leaves.

_Relax. We'll be fine. You can win this, then I've got some ideas about what to do with that money. Also, I hope you plan to exploit the attention everyone will give you for winning. I've been thinking that the hierarchy in Slytherin needs remodelling. There's a lot of rich, powerful, and stupid kids who we can manipulate to—_

"Shut up," he mutters, and ignores the odd look he gets from Diggory.

The hedges covering the Quidditch pitch are now twenty feet high. The four champions stand with Ludo Bagman at the gap marking the entrance, while McGonagall, Moody, Hagrid, and Flitwick set off around the maze, there to come and get them if they decide they've had enough and need rescuing. Bagman tells Harry that Moody will be keeping his magical eye on Harry the whole time in the event of a seizure; Harry says he doesn't want rescuing unless it happens while facing an obstacle and he's in mortal danger. He can handle seizures; he's not letting them stop him from winning the tournament.

As the champion with the most points, he's the first one into the maze. He casts _Lumos_ as soon as he's in, the starlit sky providing little light to guide him. He hurries forward until he comes to a fork and glances behind him before digging in his pocket for his tracking arrow. It reads simply _centre of the maze_ and when he orders it to direct him, it spins and points right. He turns that way, following the hedge along, and hears the whistle that means Diggory, who's second for points, has entered the maze.

He comes across one of Hagrid's Blast-Ended Skrewts, a ten foot long creature that seemed to be half-scorpion and half-lobster, armed with a sharp point on its tail and blasting fire out of its backside. He's heard about them from Hermione and Neville, who were studying them in class during the first term, but they hadn't said they were so big.

_Why in all nine hells does Dumbledore allow that half-giant monster to work here?!_ the voice says, and Harry's inclined to agree with it. He Wishes the Skrewt motionless and runs under it, hoping the freezing will keep it from blasting fire as well.

He stops short when he turns a corner and comes face to face with Crowley, forgetting for one moment that Crowley would not be in a hedge maze.

_It's not him!_ screams the voice. _It's a Boggart! Stab it!_

He grabs the knife, staggering away from the Boggart-Crowley as he fumbles to get the blade out, then standing his ground and slashing it at the man. It cuts across his stomach and he staggers, but doesn't bleed. Harry lunges forward, this time thrusting the knife, driving it into the man's chest, drawing it out then doing it again. The Boggart stumbles and Harry shoves it into a bush, then rushes past, thinking only that he needs to get away. He doesn't slow down until he can conjure a butterfly, then he has to stand and breathe for a moment, surrounded by a swarm of butterflies just to reassure himself he can still do magic.

He straightens up when he hears the scream, heart still racing from the adrenaline of facing the Boggart.

_That was the Delacour girl. Looks like we're one champion down._

'She could be hurt,' he thinks, looking up and seeing no red sparks flying into the air to signify that she needs help.

_Who cares? It's none of our concern. She doesn't even like you, thinks you're a good for nothing little cheat. Why should you concern yourself with her?_

It's right, of course, but he feels a little guilty as he carries on along the maze.

He almost tumbles into a marshy-swamp when he rounds one corner, stepping one foot into it and then leaping back when the finned paws of a dugbog try to grab his ankle. The creature snaps its razor sharp teeth unhappily but goes back to sitting motionless like a dead log. He shakes off water from his foot, glances up to gauge how high the hedges are then decides he's got enough height to levitate himself up and fly over the swamp rather than turning to go back and find a different route.

"What are you doing? What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Harry grinds to a halt, hearing Diggory's panicked voice directly on the other side of the hedge, and then he hears Krum's voice.

" _Crucio!_ "

He doesn't even think about it, just turns himself invisible, flies up and over the hedge and down onto the other side, where Krum's standing over a shrieking, twitching Diggory. Harry jerks his hand and Krum's thrown off his feet, hurtling through the air then hitting the ground. He doesn't get up again. Harry turns visible and rushes over to Diggory, who's stopped screaming and lays panting and twitching slightly.

"You okay?"

"Yeah," Diggory pants, letting Harry help him to his feet. "I don't believe it... he crept up on me, I heard him, turned, and he had his wand on me... I thought he was alright."

"I never really liked him."

"We should send up red sparks. What did you do, stun him?"

"Yeah," Harry lies as Diggory raises his wand and shoots sparks in the sky.

_Should have killed him. Another bully. Amazing how many there are, don't you think? So many people willing to abuse their power._

The two carry on and part ways again. Harry stumbles across a patch of Devil's Snare that's easily destroyed with a blast of fire, although he's careful not the burn the bushes of the maze, and then he comes up to a spell of some kind. He's not sure what; there's a shimmer in the air, like the gleam of a bubble in sunlight, reaching across the width of the maze and stretching as high as the tops of the bushes, making him unsure if he'll be able to fly over it. He peers closely, not touching and trying to figure out what it does, but there's no indication. He takes out his knife and pokes the shimmer. The tip of the blade slips through as though the shimmer isn't even there, not breaking it nor appearing in anyway damaged when he draws it out again. Shrugging, he pockets it and steps forward.

Pitch blackness engulfs him and he freezes. He can see absolutely nothing and he's suddenly completely certain that the entire world has simply ceased to exist, that he and the wand gripped tightly in one hand are the only things left in existence and the rest of his life will be spent stuck in this pitch blackness.

_No!_ the voice shouts violently. _No, I don't like it. Do something. Do something right now. I don't care what, just do something and get me out!_

He steps forward and suddenly the fading sunlight of the day blinds him. He stands blinking for a moment, waiting for his eyes to readjust, then looks behind him at the deceptively calm shimmer of air. He shivers and hurries forward, pausing briefly around the corner to consult his tracking arrow before running on and then skidding to a halt when he reaches a T-junction. He glances left, sees only more bushes, then right and his breath catches—at the end, gleaming on a plinth fifty yards ahead, is the Triwizard Cup.

He's barely started running towards it when he hears a voice yell, " _Impedimenta!_ "

He's knocked off his feet and tossed forwards onto the ground, but when he tries to get up its like wading through sludge. He hears footsteps and then Diggory sidles past him, grinning cockily.

"Sorry, Evans, but—"

A giant spider crashes onto their path from the left and skitters over Diggory, sending him tumbling to the ground and knocking the wand from his hand. It bears down on him, pincers clicking, and Diggory can only stare up at it in horror.

"Freeze!" Harry yells, but he's still got his wand in one hand and instead of just becoming motionless, the spider freezes solid, ice crystals forming along the hairs of its body and all along its pincers.

"Oops," he says, and the voice in his head sniggers.

Harry throws off the Impedimenta Jinx at the same time Diggory scrambles to his feet and grabs his wand and they stare at each other between the frozen spider legs.

_Hex him and go get the cup!_

Harry doesn't.

_Get the cup! He didn't hesitate to hex us. Return the favour and get it so we win!_

"Did I hear that right? You just yelled at that spider and..."

"Um... yeah."

_Oh, and now we're revealing secrets. Do you want to tell him about me while you're at it? What's next, dropping your pants and letting him bugger you?_

"Are you alright? You've gone red."

"I'm fine," Harry says, then clears his throat. "I'm fine." He gestures at the cup twenty feet beyond Diggory. "You going to get that?"

_What are you doing, you half-brained moron?!_

Diggory glances over his shoulder then looks back at Harry. "Not sure I deserve it. That's twice you've said my arse in here. Feel bad about jinxing you now."

_Yes, yes, take advantage of his stupid Hufflepuff morality._

"I'm not sure the rest of the school will be impressed if the underage Slytherin takes the cup, and it was fair play. Not like you turned on me like Krum turned."

"Yeah." He looks around again, then, "This isn't about our houses, though. It's a Hogwarts win, either way, and underage or not, you made it this far and saved my life twice. You deserve to win."

_Oh come on,_ the voice moans. _Listen to him. We did this. Just take the cup._

"Both of us," Harry says. "Like you said, it's a Hogwarts victory and if we both take it, none of the houses can complain."

_What? No, no, no, that's not what I meant._

"Alright," Diggory agrees. "Yeah, that's a good idea."

Harry scurries under the spider and joins Diggory in approaching the cup, ignoring the voice and counting to three before they both wrap a hand around the cup's handles, then there's a familiar jerk in his navel and his feet leave the ground.

He slams into the ground and his knees give way. The cup slips from his fingers and he lifts his head.

"Where are we?"

_Good question_ , says the voice, and for the first time all day it's not mocking or abusive.

"I don't know," Diggory says, getting to his feet. Harry does the same, looking around. They're standing in a graveyard, miles from the school—there's no sign of the castle or the surrounding mountains.

"Did anyone tell you the cup was a portkey?" Harry asks and Diggory shakes his head.

_I don't think this is part of the tournament. What are those lines on the ground?_

Harry looks. There are marks painted on the grass, surrounding them on all sides. He draws his wand to light it and get a better look, but the Lumos spell doesn't work. He frowns, tries again, and then attempts Wish Magic. Nothing works.

"Fuck."

"Someone's coming."

Harry spins, looking in the direction Diggory's pointing. A hunched, cloaked figure is approaching them from between the gravestones, carrying a bundle in its arms. Diggory raises his wand and Harry clutches his own in his left hand, taking out his knife with his right.

The figure stops just beyond the marks painted on the ground. Pain explodes across Harry's scar and he staggers, dropping to his knees, wand and knife slipping from his fingers as he reaches up to clutch at his head.

"Kill the spare."

He's knows it's no good but he still tries to throw up a shield, to Apparate, to Wish them to safety, but nothing stops the screeching voice: " _Avada Kedavra!_ "

There's a flash of green light and something thuds down beside him. The pain in his head spikes and he retches, then it fades and he opens his eyes, breathing hard and blinking away tears, and looks to his side. Diggory lies spread eagled beside him, eyes staring blankly at the sky, mouth still half-open in surprise, completely dead.

_We're fucked._

The figure points their wand again. Harry's hands jerk off the floor and he falls forwards, face hitting the grass as his hands are yanked behind him and ropes bind themselves around his wrists. He squirms, struggling to roll over and push himself up, but the figure is approaching him now. They've put down the bundle but taken something from it and when they reach Harry he realises it's a cloak, which the figure puts around Harry's shoulders. As they do, Harry sees their left hand, which is missing a finger.

"You!" he snarls, trying to get to his feet. "I should have killed you when I had the chance!"

Wormtail glances at him, frightened, but grabs him by the arms and starts dragging him over to one of the gravestones. He takes him past the circle of lines— _runes_ , the voice provides, _magic suppression runes, just like on the cloak of that Assistant guy, just like Dumbledore's cuffs_ —and Harry immediately tries to Wish him stunned, but it doesn't work. Wormtail shoves him down against the gravestone—the name on which reads _Tom Riddle_ , Harry notices—pulls closed the cloak he'd put around Harry, and murmurs a spell to hold it in place.

_The rat paid attention_ , the voice says as Wormtail conjures ropes to tie Harry to the gravestone. _The cloak's covered in runes, just like the Assistant's. We're still powerless, but why? What's he doing? What's in that bundle he has?_

Harry doesn't know, but he's starting to think he doesn't want to know either.

When he's bound, Wormtail shoves a piece of black cloth in Harry's mouth then skitters away, disappearing from Harry's line of vision. The bundle he'd been carrying is resting at the foot of the grave, just six feet in front of Harry and when he looks at it his scar burns.

Wormtail returns with a large stone cauldron full of liquid, puffing and panting as he pushes it forwards. The thing in the bundle of robes stirs and a huge snake circles the grave. Harry watches as Wormtail pulls open the robes and he lets out a cry of revulsion as he sees the repulsive, hairless, red-eyed thing inside. Wormtail lifts it off the ground, drops it into the cauldron, and then turns to the grave over which Harry's tied.

" _Bone of the father, unknowingly given, you will renew your son!_ "

Something white and powdery rises from the ground under Harry, floats through the air and drops into the cauldron, the contents of which turn vivid blue.

" _Flesh_ — _of the servant—w-willingly given—you will—revive—your master._ "

Harry watches, disturbed, as Wormtail takes a dagger from his robes and cuts off his own hand, letting it drop into the cauldron and turning the potion bright red.

" _B-blood of the enemy... forcibly taken... you will... resurrect your foe._ "

Harry can't fight, the ropes too tight and his arms trapped uncomfortably behind him, and Wormtail, now whimpering pathetically, cuts the dagger along Harry's cheek then holds a vial up to the wound, taking several drops of blood which he pours into the cauldron.

It instantly turns blindingly white. Wormtail staggers away and drops to his knees, gasping and sobbing. Harry watches the cauldron, sees the potion give off a billow of white smoke, then sees, to his horror, a skeletally thin man rising from inside.

"Robe me," says a high, cold voice from behind the smoke, and Wormtail, sobbing and moaning, still cradling his mutilated arm, scrambles to pick up the black robes from the ground, gets to his feet, reaches up, and pulls them one-handed over his master's head.

_Lord Voldemort has risen again._

Harry really doesn't need the voice in his head to tell him that.


	32. Chapter 32

A blond man stands on the path to Hogsmeade, wrapped in a dark green cloak and invisible to anyone who might pass, with his left sleeve pushed up to show the black tattoo on his forearm. When it burns, he laughs, twirls with delight, then Apparates away.

* * *

There's blood in Harry's mouth and a familiar weakness along his right side. His head pounds, all his muscles ache, and his wrists feel bloody. Voldemort crouches in front of him.

"It is true," Voldemort says with a cruel, mirthless smile. "You are a diseased, weak child."

Harry coughs. The cloth has been removed from his mouth and blood and spit dribble down his chin. "I'm not diseased," he says weakly. "It's a brain disorder, and if you really believed I was weak you wouldn't have tied me up and stolen my magic."

There's the sound of swishing cloaks as robed and masked figures appear, Apparating into the graveyard. Voldemort rises and moves away and Harry watches the newcomers move forwards, almost hesitant as they approach Voldemort, drop to their knees and kiss the hem of his robes before backing up again, rising and forming a circle around Voldemort, Harry, and Wormtail.

_This is what I want. People who bend before me, people who fear me, worship me. If we survive this, this is what we will seek to achieve. Voldemort can get these men to bow to him. With your power we will have the whole world kneeling at our feet._

'Demon deal,' Harry thinks, and it gets across everything he needs to say.

* * *

The Assistant leaves the graveyard as soon as he arrives, unseen by anyone. He has fulfilled his Master's commands of answering the summons; now he is free to pursue his own ends.

Narcissa Malfoy is never aware of the Assistant Apparating, silent and invisible, into her husband's cellar. She paces the sitting room, restless as she waits for Lucius to return from the Lord he hasn't seen in fourteen years.

The Assistant pricks his thumb with merely a thought, presses it to the back wall of the cellar, and the invisible door swings open. The man inside the room sits up, lifting a hand to shade his eyes as the torch on the wall flickers to life. When he's adjusted to it, he squints up at the Assistant.

"You're not Master," he says hoarsely.

"No, I'm not Master. Up you get, we're going out."

The man shrinks back against the wall. "I have to stay. Master will be angry if I leave."

"I'm a friend of your Master. He sent me for you."

The man squints at him suspiciously. "Master has never sent anyone for me."

The Assistant crouches in front of the man and pushes up the sleeve of his left arm, baring the Dark Mark. "Is this proof enough for you? I am a friend of your Master and his lord."

The man flicks his brown eyes from the Mark to the Assistant's face then back down again. "Master really sent you for me?"

"Yes. Give me your hand, and we'll go."

The man hesitates then cautiously places his hand in the Assistant's. The Assistant's fingers curl around it and his other hand grabs the man's arm, then they both Disapparate. They reappear in the kitchen of Black Stag House. The Assistant straightens up, but the man remains on the floor, covering his eyes against the brightness of the well-lit kitchen.

"Remus!"

Footsteps hurry through from the sitting room. Lupin stops in the doorway, grabbing his wand from his pocket and lifting it to point at the Assistant.

"What are you doing here?"

The Assistant steps aside, revealing the man on the floor. Lupin glances at him, eyes going wide, hand dropping.

"That's not possible!"

The man lifts his head, lowering his arm and squinting up at Lupin, who can only gape at him.

"You may want to take him to Saint Mungo's," the Assistant suggests. "He's not going to be the man you think he is. I have to go, I have other work to do."

"Wait! I don't understand. Where...?"

"Malfoy Manor. It was all Lucius, understand. Narcissa and Draco never knew. Probably. Narcissa _might_ have, but she usually doesn't, and Draco never does."

"What?"

"Just... Saint Mungo's. He'll need a lot of help. Do that before you try to contact Sirius or anyone else. You have to."

He lifts a hand and taps two fingers to his head in a salute then vanishes from view before Disapparating.

* * *

"Welcome, Death Eaters. Fourteen years... Fourteen years since last we met. Yet you answer my call as though it were yesterday... We are still united under the Dark Mark, then! _Or are we_? I smell guilt. I see you all, whole and healthy, with your powers intact—such prompt appearances!—and I ask myself... why did this band of wizards never come to the aid of their master, to whom they swore eternal loyalty? And I answer myself, they must have believed me broken, they thought I was gone. They slipped back among my enemies, and they pleaded innocence, and ignorance, and bewitchment... And then I ask myself, but how could they have believed I would not rise again? They, who knew the steps I took, long ago, to guard myself against mortal death? They, who had seen proofs of the immensity of my power in the times when I was mightier than any wizard living? And I answer myself, perhaps they believed a still greater power could exist, one that could vanquish even Lord Voldemort... perhaps they now pay allegiance to another... perhaps that champion of commoners, of Mudbloods and Muggles, Albus Dumbledore?"

One of the Death Eaters throws himself forward, spouting apologies and pleading mercy. Voldemort points his wand and murmurs, " _Crucio!_ " and the man shrieks, writhing on the ground.

 _Fool_ , the voice murmurs uncaringly in Harry's head.

"Get up, Avery. Lord Voldemort does not forgive. I want fourteen years of repayment before I forgive. Wormtail has already repaid some of his debt, haven't you, Wormtail?"

"Master..." Wormtail sobs, and Harry can't help idly agreeing with the voice as it sneers at the pathetic man. "Please... master..."

"You deserve this pain, Wormtail. You know that, don't you? You returned to me out of fear, fear of your old friends, not loyalty to me. But you restored me to my body. Worthless and pathetic as you are, you helped me, and Lord Voldemort rewards those who help him."

 _Well that's entirely unfair_ , the voice remarks as Voldemort conjures a gleaming silver hand for Wormtail _. How long did you spend in that wretched hospital to receive your eyes? And yet this rat gets a new hand in mere moments. We're under the wrong health plan, clearly. Do you think he includes dental?_

Harry laughs. It's weak, short-lived, and contains little mirth, but it draws Voldemort's attention and elicits murmurs from the Death Eaters. Harry thinks he shouldn't be responding to the voice so much, but he's bound, powerless, and tied to a gravestone while Lord Voldemort stands before him. Insanity, he thinks, is the least of his worries.

"Do you find something amusing?" Voldemort asks in his cold voice.

"He wants to know if you include dental in your healthcare plan."

There a pregnant pause. Harry wishes he could move even to just squirm a little. He's stiff and sore and he's got pins and needles in his left arm.

"You dare to mock Lord Voldemort?"

_He does like to talk about himself in the third person, doesn't he?_

"Do you think it's a sign of madness?"

_I think a boy who hears voices has no place discussing the madness of others._

"I think the voice in the head of a boy who hears voices has no place discussing the madness of others."

 _Touché_.

"Wormtail did not mention your madness," Voldemort says quietly.

"It's a recent development," Harry tells him. "Are you—"

_Don't ask him if he's going to kill you, moron!_

"Why not?"

 _You will give him ideas_.

Harry giggles. Voldemort and the Death Eaters stare at him. Harry lifts his head to look at Voldemort.

"There's this voice inside my head. I've been hearing it for a while now, but I haven't told anyone. I didn't want them thinking I'm mad, you see, but I don't think it matters anymore. Anyway, he thinks if I ask you if you're going to kill me, then I'd be giving you ideas. I guess he forgot that you tried to kill me twice already. Three times if you include your diary."

The Death Eaters seem to collectively hold their breath. Harry looks around at them then back at Voldemort.

"Should I not have mentioned that you kept a diary?"

" _Crucio!_ "

Every nerve in his body is being pinched in a vice. His blood is on fire and his bones have turned to ice. This is pain beyond anything he's felt before, beyond anything he's imagined, and the screams coming from his mouth are echoed by the voice in his head.

There's mere seconds between when Voldemort stops the curse and when Harry starts to seize. Voldemort turns away, uncaring, to assess his Death Eaters. Only when Harry stops moving and goes limp against the ropes does Voldemort pause.

"Lucius, check if he's alive," he says carelessly before carrying on. "Crabbe, Goyle, you will do better this time, will you not?"

"Yes, my lord."

"Of course, my lord."

Lucius looks around from where he's crouched before Harry. "He's alive, my lord, but unconscious."

"Leave him for now."

* * *

The first thing he sees is grass. It's blurry and swaying and he blinks at it. His head hurts, a steady, pulsing throb on the back of his skull, which feels oddly warm. His muscles are aching furiously and he desperately wants to sleep. There's more blood in his mouth.

A hand grips his chin and forces his head up. More pain pulses through his scar and he moans, but he doesn't have the energy to pull his head away. Blood bubbles between his lips and dribbles down his chin. Voldemort is crouched before him, cold, skeletal fingers holding his chin, red eyes staring hatefully at him.

A loud crack draws their attention to a figure Apparating into the graveyard.

"Sorry I'm late," calls a cheerful voice, and the Assistant nonchalantly strolls forwards, a grin on his face as he plants his hands on the shoulders of one of the Death Eaters and stands on tiptoes to look over their shoulder to Voldemort. "I had to take a brief trip to Malfoy Manor first."

There's a sharp inhale from the Death Eater whose shoulders the Assistant grabbed, and he jerks away, spinning and drawing a wand, the tip of which he shoves against the Assistant's throat.

"If you touched a _hair_ on my wife's head," Lucius snarls, but the Assistant cuts him off.

"Relax, Luci, she never even knew I was there. You little pet, however... I might have freed him from his chains."

Voldemort lets go of Harry and rises to stand straight. "Who's your friend, Lucius?" he asks in a tone that says he's about to start hurting people.

"I've never seen him before in my life, my lord."

The Assistant lifts a hand and taps two fingers to his head in a salute. "Hello! I'm the Assistant. I'm sure you've heard about me from Peter over there. Oh, look you've given him the hand. I always feel you shouldn't bother. He never survives, y'know, and really, it's only Peter. He's hardly worth the effort. Oh, the kid's not looking so good, is he? Let's have a look at that."

The figure in front of Lucius flickers and vanishes.

"Mmhm... nasty head injury here. You awake there, Harry?"

The Death Eaters spin, all of them drawing wands to aim at the Assistant, who crouches beside Harry inspecting the back of his head, which is bleeding profusely after smacking back against the headstone during his seizure.

"You're the 'ssistant," Harry mumbles blearily.

"Uh huh, glad you remember me. Hold still and I'll fix this up."

"Kill him!"

Thirty wands suddenly jump into the air and there are shocked cries from the Death Eaters as they look up, a few of them jumping to try and grab their wands back, but they're too high to reach. Only Voldemort keeps his. Nagini lunges towards the Assistant, baring her fangs in a hiss, only to slam into an invisible wall and drop to the grass, stunned. The Assistant doesn't even look up.

Harry feels a warm tingling sensation along the back of his head and some of the pain fades away. It doesn't ease the post-seizure fuzziness but his vision clears a little and he lifts his head, feeling a hand slip away from his hair as he looks at the Assistant.

"Better?"

"Bit," he mumbles. He tries to spit some of the blood from his mouth, but manages only to send more dripping down his face. At least it's not in his mouth, he figures.

Voldemort snarls a curse. The Assistant grabs the edge of his cloak and pulls it up, shielding Harry, and the curse bounces off harmlessly. The Assistant rises, turning to face Voldemort.

"Care to try again? I haven't really had a chance to properly test the cloak this time around. Not that she'll fail me of course, she never does, but it's nice to give her a test run, y'know?"

"You call your cloak 'she'?" sneers one of the Death Eaters, and the Assistant looks affronted.

"Don't diss my cloak, Preston. That was Preston, wasn't it? So hard to tell you apart behind those masks, but I'm pretty sure that's you. It's that distinctive drawl; I'd recognise it anywhere. Are you still addicted to oranges?"

"Silence!" Voldemort demands, his wand still on the Assistant. "Tell me who you are."

"I'm the Assistant. I assist people. Hence Assistant. Oh, look! That must the Diggory boy."

There's a crack and the Assistant disappears and reappears beside Diggory's dead body, crouching down to look at him, reaching over to slide his eyelids shut. "Such a waste. D'you know, he always dies. I haven't figured out why. It's odd, really. I mean, he's not important in the grand scheme of things, but he _always_ dies. He's a Key Point but I can't for the life of me figure out why. Still," he says with a sigh. "These things happen. Oh look, a wand. And a knife. These must be yours, Harry."

"Are you here to help me?" Harry asks weakly.

"Ah," he says, rising to stand again. "Well. Maybe. We'll see. Do you expect me to? I did enable Peter to escape last year, thus inadvertently causing the entire chain of events that lead to you being here and Voldemort returning. You can thank me for that later, by the way," he adds to Voldemort.

"You will not help him," Voldemort says. The Assistant's hand twitches.

"I really wish you hadn't said that."

"The boy will die tonight!"

"The boy will not," the Assistant retorts, then adds as an afterthought, "Hopefully."

"Whose side are you on?" demands one of the Death Eaters.

"Ah, well, there's a tricky question," the Assistant replies, walking back towards the group. "Excuse me, can I get through? Ta very mu- well that's not very nice," he says as Crabbe and Goyle grab him by the arms.

"Bring him to me."

They march him forwards and Voldemort lights his wand, lifting it and inspecting the Assistant's face.

"Who are you?"

"I've answered that already. You're getting quite repetitive."

"How did you know to come here?"

"Same way the rest of 'em did."

"Show me his arm."

Crabbe shifts his grip and pushes up the Assistant's left sleeve, baring his forearm. Voldemort inspects the Dark Mark, presses his wand to it and murmuring a spell. The Assistant jerks and groans. Voldemort frowns.

Harry's watching Voldemort and the Assistant so he jumps when a figure appears next to him. Or at least, jumps as much as he can when he's tied up as he is. When he turns his head and finds himself looking at the Assistant, his jaw drops.

"Illusion," says the Assistant crouched beside him. "Extremely useful. I recommend practising them. What's he done to stop your magic?"

Harry looks from him to the Assistant still stood between Crabbe and Goyle, then back again. "Wha- I don't understand. How are you...? I'm seeing things," he concludes. He must be. First voices, now hallucinations.

_Progressive insanity. What's next, I wonder._

"Keep your madness to yourself, boy," Voldemort says without looking away from the Assistant in front of him, who's trembling as he stands between Crabbe and Goyle, a sweat breaking out on his face and his breathing harsh and painful. "What is wrong with you?"

"How long you got?" the Assistant gasps, then groans as his legs go weak, making him stagger and leaving the two Death Eaters as the only things holding him up.

The Assistant next to Harry draws his attention again. "Like I said: illusion. And you can speak freely now. He won't hear you. I'm something of an expert when it comes to sensory manipulation."

"Oh," Harry says, because he's not sure what else to say and the voice isn't providing anything.

"I'm still stood between those two hulks," the Assistant says, glancing over. "What you're talking to isn't real, but as I said, I'm an expert at sensory manipulation. Now tell me, how's he stopping your magic? There are no runes on the ground."

"Cloak," he answers.

The Assistant tuts. "Thief, stealing my ideas. Alright, I'm going to free you, but keep a glamour up so no one notices. I want you to sneak over to Cedric and then summon the Triwizard Cup, which will take you both back to Hogwarts."

"There's runes—" he starts, but the Assistant interrupts him.

"Scrubbed. You'll be fine."

"Drop him," Voldemort says.

Crabbe and Goyle let go and the Assistant drops to his hands and knees, back arching, fingers curling into the grass, trembling all over and whimpering painfully.

"My lord," Lucius says suddenly, "if I may...?"

Voldemort glances at him. "Speak quickly, Lucius."

"Fuck you, Lucius," the Assistant growls between clenched teeth. "Oh, bloody Merlin's dick on a pancake, this fucking hurts."

Harry doesn't argue with the Assistant or ask questions. Real or imagined, he's helping him and Harry's not about to argue with that. The ropes fall away, both the ones tying him to the gravestone and the one's around his wrists, and he struggles to pull the cloak over his head, fighting against the charm Wormtail cast to keep it in place.

"Go," the Assistant says when he finally gets it off. "Make sure you take Cedric's body and be quick. I can't keep this up much longer."

The image disappears. Harry turns himself invisible but remains crouched as he slips around the gravestone, stepping over the motionless Nagini, slipping through a gap between the Death Eaters and over to Diggory. When he glances back, he sees himself still tied to the gravestone, watching the trembling Assistant with confused and fearful eyes. He looks away again, grabs his wand and knife from the ground and shoves them in his pocket, wraps a hand around Diggory's wrist, and wordlessly summons the Triwizard Cup.

"My lord, have you ever heard—"

"The boy's gone!"

Voldemort spins, eyes landing on the pile of ropes and the cloak by the gravestone. The Assistant crumples, whimpering slightly as the tremors coursing through him begin to lessen. Voldemort gives a scream of fury.

"YOU! You did this!"

"Me," the Assistant gasps weakly. Wands drop from the sky and the Death Eaters lunge for them; a moment of confusion ensues as they tried to figure out whose wand is whose. Voldemort's own wand fixes instantly on the Assistant.

" _Crucio!_ "

It's Wormtail who scurries forward and fumbles to remove the cloak from the twitching, screaming man, pulling it away then turning it inside out and throwing it back over him. Instantly the blond hair turns to a light brown, longer than the fluffy mop he'd had a moment ago. Voldemort stops the curse, moving to crouch and peer at the Assistant's face again. The Assistant breathes harshly, still twitching slightly, but stares back defiantly. His eyes are no longer blue, his round face has turned oval, his skin a shade paler, his features a little more defined, and there's a shadow of beard growth along his jaw.

"Impossible," Voldemort whispers.

"Think there's a lot of that going around tonight. Now if you'll excuse me, you really should have bound me before you stopped torturing me."

He jerks up, slamming his head against Voldemort's, and throws off the cloak, conjuring a shield just in time to defend himself from the curses the Death Eaters throw to try and stop him. He swings the cloak around, and Disapparates with a crack as it settles, right way in, over his shoulders.

* * *

"I need to ask you a few questions."

Lupin drags his gaze away from the unconscious man in the bed, his wrists tied in restraints to keep him from attacking anyone when he wakes up, as he had when Lupin first brought him to the hospital, and looks at the healer who spoke to him. She's young, probably only a healer-in-training, and carrying a clipboard and a pen.

"Of course."

"First things first, what's his name?"

Lupin looks back at the man, gazing at him for a long moment before he answers.

"James Potter."


	33. Chapter 33

Harry's not sure what happens after he leaves the graveyard. He thinks he must have a seizure because the next thing he knows he's sitting in a chair and someone's forcing a potion down his throat. He swallows instinctively and feels some of the post-seizure fuzziness easing away. His head's pounding and he feels sick, but he blinks hard, trying to make his blurry vision clear, and the image of Mad-Eye Moody comes into focus in front of him.

"What happened, Evans?"

"I don't—Voldemort was—there was a portkey and—" He breaks off, lifting a hand to his head, wishing it would stop hurting so much. He can't think clearly. Even his voice is distant, wavering; it's trying to tell him something, he thinks, but he can't hear it properly.

"What about Voldemort? Did you see him?"

"He came back. There was a potion, and Wormtail, and there were Death Eaters... I need to go to the hospital. My head..."

"Soon, boy. Tell me about the Dark Lord. How did he come back?"

"A-a potion. He took stuff—Wormtail made stuff come out of the ground, and cut off his hand, and took my blood and... and I don't know... I seized, and my head... my head..."

He trails off, lifting a hand to his head.

"I'll get you to the hospital. You need to tell me what happened first. The Death Eaters, did they return?"

Harry nods slightly. "They were there and the Assistant. I think, I don't... I was seeing things, and—"

He breaks off with a pained gasp as Moody grabs his shoulders and shakes him vigorously.

"Tell me—"

Moody's thrown backwards, crashing against the wall with a cry and sliding to the floor. Harry forces himself to his feet, then staggers, grabbing the chair for support.

"You... you—I knew you weren't trust-"

* * *

"Harry? C'mon, kid, up you get. Sit up, come on."

Hands wrap around his arms and start to lift him off the floor, then his stomach lurches and he throws up.

"Dumbledore, he needs to go to the Hospital Wing."

"Not yet. Harry, look at me. Can you hear me?"

He leans against Sirius and Dumbledore crouches in front of him, his expression stern like Harry's only ever seen the time he turned the headmaster into a slug.

"Yes," he says weakly. He can taste blood and vomit. His head still throbs.

"I—" Dumbledore begins, but the door to the room opens and Snape comes in. He takes one look at Harry and his face turns furious.

"Why is he still here? He needs to get to the Hospital Wing."

"He will, Severus, soon. First he needs to hear what happened tonight. He needs to understand, so that he can begin to accept, and then to recover."

"The hell he needs to hear—"

But there's a sharp gasp and Harry realises McGonagall's in the room as well. She stares at Moody, who lies on the floor unconscious. His face twists and morphs, his magical eye pops out to be replaced by a real one, his wooden leg falls away with a clump and a real leg grows back in its place, until it's no longer Moody lying on the floor, but Barty Crouch Junior.

Harry listens silently, only half-awake, as Crouch answers Dumbledore's questions and tells the story of how, after his arrest for the torture of Alice and Frank Longbottom, his father snuck him out of Azkaban and kept him hidden at home, controlled by the Imperius; how Crouch began to fight back and at the Quidditch World Cup the summer before stole a wand from Ginny Weasley, using it to send the Dark Mark into the sky; how Voldemort learnt of his existence and came to request his help, asking Crouch to pose as Moody and take his place as the Defence teacher at Hogwarts; how he was the one to put Harry's name in the Goblet of Fire, how he was supposed to assist Harry through the tasks if need be, but was unable to because of the instant dislike Harry took to him; how he was the one to get Hopkins to reveal Harry's identity to Skeeter so everyone would realise that Harry's death was also the death of the Boy Who Lived; how he took the Triwizard Cup to the maze that evening and turned it into a portkey that would take Harry to the graveyard where Wormtail and Voldemort were waiting for him.

"It worked," Crouch says finally. "I felt the burn of my master's calling tonight. Lord Voldemort has risen again."

When Dumbledore says he wants Harry to come up to his office before going to the Hospital Wing, Snape, McGonagall, and Sirius object and a brief argument ensues until Harry begs, "Please stop shouting."

Sirius, who was the one yelling at the time, falls silent and looks at him. "Sorry, kid," he apologises softly.

"Why do you want me in your office?" Harry asks Dumbledore, who once again comes to crouch in front of him. His face isn't stern anymore, but soft, almost apologetic.

"Harry, I need to know what happened tonight. I understand you won't want to talk about it, and if I thought I could help you by putting you into an enchanted sleep and allowing you to postpone the moment when you would have to think about what has happened tonight, I would do it. But I know better. Numbing the pain for a while will make it worse when you finally feel it. You have shown bravery beyond anything I could have expected of you. I ask you to demonstrate your courage one more time. I ask you to tell us what happened and then I will personally escort you to the Hospital Wing."

_Let's get it over with_ , says the voice in his head. It sounds as weary as he feels, but it's clear. _If we say no, there'll only be another argument. Let's be done with it and then we can rest._

He leans against Sirius as they walk up to Dumbledore's office and doesn't mention that Sirius' hand is gripping his arm hard enough to leave bruises. He's grateful for the support, for having his godfather there, for not having to be alone right now. At Dumbledore's office, he collapses into a chair and wonders how to explain everything that happened.

_The cup was a portkey. It took us to a graveyard. There were magic suppression runes on the ground so I couldn't do anything to defend us. Wormtail was there and he had this weird looking baby that was Voldemort. Wormtail killed Diggory then he tied me up and made a potion using Voldemort's father's bone, Wormtail's hand, and my blood. He put the weird baby thing into it and Voldemort rose from it, alive and fully restored. I seized then. The next thing I remember is Death Eaters Apparating there and bowing before him. He talked to them about how disappointed he was that they'd never looked for him before and he tortured one of them. He tortured us too and I think I had another seizure. Then the Assistant turned up and he was talking a lot, but I don't remember much, and then he cast a glamour and made Voldemort and the Death Eaters think he was in one place when he was actually helping me. He untied me and distracted them so I could get away._

Harry repeats it all word for word. The voice is more coherent than he is and if he'd had to tell the story himself it would probably have taken twice as long and made only half as much sense. Later he'll also be grateful because if left to tell it himself, he'd likely have revealed the voice in his head and the fact he's not sure if what he saw was real or not, and he doesn't want them knowing he's crazy.

"The Assistant helped you escape?" Sirius asks. "But he helped Pettigrew get away, and it sounds like that caused all this. Whose side is he on?"

Harry doesn't have an answer to that. Dumbledore gets to his feet.

"You have shown bravery beyond anything I could have expected of you tonight, Harry. You have shown bravery equal to those who died fighting Voldemort at the height of his powers. You have shouldered a grown wizard's burden and found yourself equal to it—and you have now given us all that we have a right to expect. I will come with you both to the Hospital Wing. A Sleeping Potion, and some rest, I think..."

In the Hospital Wing, Harry sits on a bed as Pomfrey checks the back of his head, and then heals his cut cheek, the bites in his mouth, and the chafe marks around his wrists. She gives him a potion to ease the aches in his muscles and the throbbing in his head, and he's overwhelmed by the darkness that's been threatening him since his second seizure in the graveyard. He's unconscious before he even hits the pillow.

* * *

By the time Lucius Malfoy returns to his manor, it's to find the place swarming with Aurors who arrest him immediately.

The Aurors aren't entirely sure what inspired them to conduct a spontaneous raid on Malfoy Manor at such an obscure hour, nor is Amelia Bones, the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, entirely sure why she permitted it, but no one really cares after finding the hidden room in the cellar and the bloodstains inside.

The Assistant, after magically convincing the Aurors into raiding Malfoy Manor, Apparates back to his cave in the mountain over Hogsmeade, crawls into his bed roll, and sleeps for twelve hours straight.

* * *

Only when Pomfrey assures Sirius that Harry will be fine and she'll keep a close eye on him does he borrow her floo to call Lupin, who'd have expected him back earlier than this. When he gets no response from shouting, he floos through properly, thinking Lupin's in bed and hasn't heard him. But the house is empty and he finds only a hastily scribbled note on the kitchen sideboard.

_At St Mungo's, come immediately. – R_

He floos straight there, a multitude of possible injuries that Lupin might have racing through his mind, each more unpleasant than the last, but Lupin sits in the main waiting room, getting to his feet as soon as he sees Sirius and rushing over to him.

"Remus, what's wrong? Are you hurt?"

"I'm fine, Sirius. It's James."

"James?" Sirius repeats blankly.

"James Potter, Sirius. Prongs. He's alive."

* * *

Fudge refuses to believe the claim that Voldemort's back. He's heard Crouch's story but writes it off as the actions of a madman, a fanatic. Crouch may very well have created a portkey that sent Harry and Diggory off God only knows where and returned them injured and dead, respectively, but that is no proof of Voldemort's return, nor is the word of a delirious child who, Fudge points out angrily, is a Parselmouth and possibly mad.

"Minerva, can you fetch Hagrid for me please," Dumbledore requests when Fudge has stormed out his office, "and Madame Maxime if she will consent to come, and ask them to wait for me here. I will have to go down and see the Diggorys soon."

McGonagall nods and leaves the office. Only when she's gone does Dumbledore turn to Snape.

"Severus, you know what I must ask you to do. If you are ready... if you are prepared..."

"I am."

"Then good luck."

* * *

Two Aurors arrive at Saint Mungo's to see James and take a statement from Lupin. The Assistant is wanted for questioning, but no one truly expects to find him.

"He's in remarkably good shape considering the circumstances," a healer tells Lupin and Sirius, "with only minor malnourishment, some muscle and bone weakness. My biggest concern is his vitamin D deficiency—I don't think he's seen sunlight in a very long time. There're signs of torture, but again nothing as bad as I expected and no permanent damage. With the right diet and potion supplements, I expect him to recover within a month at the very most, at least physically.

"We won't know the extent of his psychological damage until he wakes up. You're probably aware that long term imprisonment can cause psychological issues, and of course torture is not something one recovers from quickly, but he's clearly developed some kind of bond with his captor. If it's an enchantment, then we should be able to lift it and his recovery will depend on the strength of the enchantment, how long it's been on him, the spell itself... if it's not, then we're looking at years of therapy."

* * *

Pomfrey jumps when Lupin floos into her office unexpectedly.

"Sorry, Poppy. I didn't mean to startle you."

"I'll live," she replies. "Is Sirius coming through as well?"

"No, he won't be. Do you know where Dumbledore is?"

"His office. Is everything alright?"

Lupin has to think before he answers that. "I don't know. I need to find Dumbledore."

Harry's still fast asleep, but cleaned up now and looking almost peaceful, and Lupin takes a moment to watch him, assuring himself Harry's fine after what he's heard from Sirius, then gently ruffles his hair before carrying on, wondering how Harry will react to what he'll learn when he wakes up and doubting it'll be easy.

Dumbledore's surprised to find Lupin waiting by the gargoyle guarding his office when he's finished with the Diggorys.

"Dumbledore, I need to speak with you, urgently."

"Sirius told you what happened tonight?"

"He mentioned it; I don't know the details."

"Minerva can tell you more. I need to speak with Hagrid, but I can talk with you later."

"Dumbledore, James Potter's alive."

"Wait for me in Minerva's office. I'll be with you as soon as I can."

"I'll be in Severus'. I need to speak with him."

"He's left to do something for me, and forgive my abruptness, but you're hardly the best person to inform him of James Potter's return."

Lupin nods. "I'll be with Minerva then."

* * *

McGonagall staggers and has to sit down when she hears. "We need to tell Severus."

Lupin sits opposite her. "You know."

McGonagall looks at him in surprise. "You do too?"

"I knew as soon as I saw Harry."

"Does Severus know you know?"

"Yes. He told me no one else did; I think he didn't want us discussing it and risk being overheard."

McGonagall tuts. "Ever the Slytherin, that man." She pauses, then says, "Harry will have to be told. It can't be kept from him any longer, not with James alive."

"That's for Severus to do, Minerva."

"How do you think he'll take it?"

"Better than Sirius will."

When Dumbledore joins them Lupin explains how James came to be in his kitchen, then explains how he took him to Saint Mungo's, where James turned angry and violent, attacking Lupin and the healers, shouting to be returned "to my master" until the healers managed to sedate him and get him into a bed. He was still unconscious when Lupin left.

"Who is this Assistant man?" McGonagall asks when he's finished.

"That's a question to which I too would dearly like to know the answer," Dumbledore replies.

Lupin and McGonagall tell Dumbledore about Snape being Harry's father and all three of them agree that Lupin should be the one to tell Sirius, before Harry wakes up. There's an unspoken worry that Sirius might reject Harry as a godchild when he finds out, though none of them want to believe he'd do it.

* * *

When James wakes up from the sedative, he refuses to speak so much as a word to anyone—not to the healers, to Sirius, or to the Aurors that come to question him. He lies in the bed he's restrained to and stares at the ceiling, jaw clenched angrily whenever someone tries talking to him. When they tell him Lucius has been arrested, something like fear flickers in his eyes but he remains stoically silent.

Sirius returns to Hogwarts to inform Lupin and the others about James' status, and Lupin takes him into McGonagall's office to tell him about Snape being Harry's father. He thinks it's probably not the best time for it, but he doubts there ever will be a good time.

"BULLSHIT!"

"Sirius—"

"It's a lie! My godson is not that greasy git's kid!"

"Severus is Harry's father, Sirius."

"Where's the proof?"

"All you have to do is look at him, Sirius."

"He looks like James."

"No, he doesn't. You want him to, so that's what you see."

"It's not possible, Moony. Lily would never have slept with him. No one in their right mind would sleep with _him_."

"There _were_ friends, Sirius."

"Then she saw sense and ditched him. She married James, Moony. She didn't get pregnant until after that. She wouldn't have cheated on him."

"It seems she did. Sirius—"

"No, it's bullshit. James is Harry's dad, not Snape."

* * *

It's little after six the next morning when Dumbledore's fireplace flares suddenly and a voice calls through, "Narcissa Malfoy requesting an urgent meeting with Albus Dumbledore."

Dumbledore, who hasn't slept yet, rises from behind his desk and goes to the fireplace, taking a pinch of powder from the pot atop the mantle and throwing it into the flames. "Please come through, Mrs Malfoy."

She's with him in moments, brushing soot of her robes. "I imagine you're already aware, but my husband was arrested last night."

"I expected it to happen, yes."

"I wish to inform Draco myself, before he has to hear it from other sources, and, as there is only a week of term left, I would like to take him home so that we might deal with this as a family."

"Of course, I quite understand. If you'll wait here, I'll fetch him myself."

Narcissa raises an eyebrow. "Surely Severus, as his Head of House, can fetch him."

"Severus is not currently in the castle," Dumbledore says as there's a knock at the door, and Narcissa knows enough to know what that means. "I assure you it's no trouble to fetch him myself. I will return shortly."

To Dumbledore's surprise and relief, Snape's the one outside his door. Snape's eyes flick past the headmaster to where Narcissa stands by the desk, composed but tense. Dumbledore doesn't need to say anything.

"Lucius has been arrested?" Snape asks, and Narcissa nods once. "I'll fetch Draco."

After Snape fetches Malfoy from Slytherin, he and Dumbledore leave them to talk in the office while they move into Dumbledore's quarters.

"You've heard about Potter then," Snape says.

"Yes. He's currently in Saint Mungo's."

"Has Harry been told?"

"No. He's still asleep and for obvious reasons, you will need to be present."

Snape looks at him. Dumbledore stares back calmly.

"You know."

"I do."

"Who was it? Lupin or McGonagall?"

"Both. I suppose I should have guessed it the day you turned on Voldemort and begged me to save both their lives. Why did you never tell me?"

"It was none of your concern," he says snappishly, then sighs wearily, rubbing both hands over his face. "The Dark Lord knows."

There's a sharp intake of breath from Dumbledore. "How?"

"Potter. It seems he's told Lucius a great deal, though how much can be used against us, I don't know, nor how much Lucius has passed on to the Dark Lord so far. He'll be furious when he hears about the arrest, but I'm still trying to work out why Lucius has been holding onto this information for so long and never tried to use it against me."

* * *

"I'm staying."

"Draco, your father has been arrested. You have to come home."

"Why? There's nothing I can do, Mother. What good will my coming home early do? If I leave now, it will look like we're hiding in shame."

"As we should," Narcissa snaps. "Your father has brought disgrace upon our family. He has made a fool of me. I understand you want to think the best of him, Draco, but what he's done—"

"Is disgraceful. I know, Mother, but it was him who did it, not us. If I leave now, people will think we were involved, that we knew about it and did nothing. Harry Evans will think I was involved and he deserves to know the truth, and _I_ deserve to have a chance to defend myself against those who'd sully my name."

"The Malfoy name has already been sullied, Draco. James Potter may be a blood traitor but he is famous and well-liked. I've read the papers, I know what happened to the Evans boy and that it wouldn't have if he had been raised by Potter. The people will realise that Lucius is inadvertently responsible for what happened to their beloved Boy Who Lived and they will rally against us for it."

Draco shakes his head. "That's why I have to stay. Father did this, not us. I want to tell Evans that myself."

"What makes you think the boy will even believe you? I am not an idiot, Draco, I know he does not trust you and barely even likes you. That has not changed since last summer or you would have mentioned it in a letter."

"Mother, I love you but I don't tell you everything."

"You don't need to. Do you think I don't know how you feel about the boy?"

Draco looks away, a faint flush rising in his cheeks.

"Come home, Draco."

"No. I'm sorry, Mother, I'm staying. Evans might not believe me, but I have to tell him anyway, and I'm not hiding in shame. Lucius Malfoy may become a disgrace, but Draco Malfoy will not and someone has to restore some dignity to our family name."


	34. Chapter 34

Lucius Malfoy's arrest and James Potter is all anyone talks about the next morning. Within five minutes of the post delivery at breakfast, Draco starts to regret his decision not to leave with his mother. He suddenly has a whole lot of sympathy for Harry and his desire to stay hidden his whole life.

Almost no one in school believes or cares that Draco didn't know about James Potter; he's still the son of the man who imprisoned him in his basement for fourteen years. The vast majority of people hate him for it; a handful of Slytherins, mostly Death Eaters' kids, think it's admirable

* * *

Harry doesn't feel particularly well-rested when he wakes up, but once he's awake he can't get back to sleep again, especially not when he remembers what happened. He's not sure what time it is, but there's sunlight streaming through the windows. His wand and his knife are on the trolley table, as is a money pouch that contains his thousand galleon prize money from winning the tournament. Sirius and Lupin sit either side of the bed.

He doesn't want to talk but the expression on Lupin's face says he has to. He doesn't see why; he told them everything the night before. Or at least, he thinks he did, and the voice in his head says he did, but he can't really remember properly; it's all incredibly blurry. But Lupin just makes small talk for a while and Sirius doesn't speak. There's a beetle crawling along the edge of the bedframe and he crushes it under his foot, twisting his shoe savagely against the poor bug.

Not long after Harry wakes, the doors open and Snape and Dumbledore come in. Sirius looks around at them, his jaw clenching, then looks back at Harry. He stares at him for a moment then stands abruptly, drawing his wand and turning it on Snape before any of them can stop him.

"Sirius!" Lupin and Dumbledore yell, but Sirius has already cast. There's a flash and a bang and Snape's thrown off his feet. Lupin jumps up, rushing around Harry's bed to grab Sirius, snatching the wand from his hand and tossing it to the bed then wrapping his arms around the other man, struggling to hold him back. Pomfrey comes running out of her office, drawn by the noise.

"YOU RAPING BASTARD! Admit it! That's how you did it, isn't it?! Lily never would—"

Lupin sticks his hand in Sirius' mouth, silencing him. Snape shoves away Dumbledore from trying to help him up and draws his own wand, his face as furious as Sirius'.

" _Expelliarmus!_ " Dumbledore cries.

"DON'T YOU DARE SAY I RAPED HER!" Snape screams as Dumbledore grabs him to stop him physically assaulting Sirius in place of cursing him. "Don't you EVER suggest I would do that! Least of all to her! _I loved her!_ "

Sirius is struggling furiously to throw off Lupin, who looks pleadingly at Dumbledore.

" _Stupefy_."

Sirius slumps. Lupin staggers at the sudden weight leant against him, but manages to stay on his feet, drag Sirius to the nearest empty bed, and push him ungracefully onto it.

Harry looks between the four men, shocked and confused. "What was that about? Why does Sirius think... was he talking about my mum?"

"That's not how we wanted this conversation to begin," Dumbledore says, letting go of Snape, who's breathing hard, a vein twitching in his temple as he stares furiously at Sirius' unconscious form.

"What conversation?" Harry asks. "What's going on?"

It's Lupin who tells him. "Harry, last night the Assistant turned up at our house with James Potter."

"I don't understand."

"James is alive. It seems that he has been all this time. He's been held captive by Lucius Malfoy, but currently he's at Saint Mungo's, and Lucius has been arrested."

The window panes rattle in their frames. Dumbledore, having expected this, has already cast unbreakable charms on the glass, as well as on everything else breakable in the room.

"My dad's alive?" Harry whispers, staring at Lupin. Lupin sighs sadly.

"The thing is, James isn't your father."

"W-what do you mean?"

"Lily had an affair," Snape says. He folds his arms over his chest and his expression is blank, but his jaw is still tensed. "James Potter isn't your father."

"Then who is?"

"Me."

They expect another outburst of magic but it doesn't come.

"No."

"Harry—" Snape starts, but Harry shakes his head.

"No. That's—that's a lie."

"Harry, it's not," Lupin says gently. "I know it's hard to believe—"

"IT'S NOT TRUE!"

The windows are shaking so hard in their frames that a low, thunder-like rumble sounds through the room and all the furniture save Harry's own bed starts to tremble. The door to the private room opens and Alastor Moody peers out, his wand in hand, still pale and thin from the imprisonment in his own trunk. Madam Pomfrey starts casting Sticking Charms on the furniture, casting glances at Harry and Snape all the while.

The voice in his head is laughing.

_Oh, this is priceless. A day ago you were an orphan; now you've got two dads!_

"He's NOT my dad!" Harry yells at it, then fixes an angry gaze on Snape and snarls, "You're _not_ my father."

Snape says nothing, just stares at him, his jaw clenched so hard his teeth are grinding.

"He is, Harry," Dumbledore says, "and—"

"NO HE'S NOT! HE'S NOT MY DAD! DAD'S DON'T LEAVE THEIR KIDS TO GET BEAT UP!"

It's one thing for Snape to have left him with the Dursleys if he was just a teacher, just an old friend of his mother—Harry can almost understand that; after all, why should he take on someone else's child? But the idea that Snape's his father and still chose to leave him there...

 _Abandoned_ , says the voice in his head, and it's not laughing now, but sounds bitter and hateful. _Abandoned by your mother, by your stepfather, now by your true father. You were abandoned by Jia, and recall how quick Hermione, Neville, Tyler, and Cid were to abandon you when they thought you a dark wizard attacking students, even if they did come back. How long is it before Sirius and Remus abandon you too? They've just got their best friend back and learnt you're not the child they thought you were; you'll be back out on the street when the school year ends and they refuse to let you back into their home._

Lupin gives a cry of surprise as Harry disappears from view, then the bed covers are pushed down, Harry's wand and knife disappear from the table, and Lupin's knocked aside.

"Alastor, can you see him?" Dumbledore asks quickly.

"No."

Snape swears. Dumbledore spins and points his wand at the door, casting a Locking Charm just as the handle turns.

"Harry, you don't need to run," he says. "Let's talk about this. Show yourself."

The window nearest the door swings open.

" _Accio!_ "

The window goes still and straight suddenly as if someone's grabbed it in an effort not to get pulled away, but then Dumbledore's wand jumps out of his hand and he trips over despite standing perfectly still. The window moves a little and then, as though kicked, swings wider until it reaches its limit before bouncing back.

Harry flies down to the castle's front door then runs back inside, still invisible as he tears through the corridors and down to the dungeons. He sees a few people and when he gets to the Slytherin common room it's busy despite being late morning on a Friday. He makes himself visible just before entering, some part of his mind thinking that he can't reveal the extent of his powers to the rest of the students. There are whispers and stares as he runs through but he doesn't notice them, his mind fixed on his target and knowing he has to be quick. As long as he's visible, they can track him and he doesn't want that.

He doesn't wonder why his roommates don't ask why he's hurriedly throwing all his possessions into his trunk or why he's running around in borrowed hospital pyjamas. He doesn't try packing neatly, just tosses everything into the trunk and squishes it down so he can close it. He puts the pot containing his magical eye into his pocket, pulls a cloak around himself, casts a Shrinking Spell on the trunk and pockets that too, then runs out again.

"Evans—"

He doesn't know who calls him and he doesn't care. He rushes out the common room, checks no one's there to see, and turns invisible once more.

He passes Dumbledore, Snape, Lupin, and Sirius in the Entrance Hall. Snape has the emerald pendant that McGonagall used two years ago to find him, but it doesn't glow and hangs limply from his hand. Dumbledore is saying something about a lockdown, but Harry doesn't stick around to listen. When he pushes open the castle doors he hears them call his name and Dumbledore casts another Summoning Charm, but Harry's ready for it this time and conjures a shield to block it. He takes flight as soon as he's out the door, thinking any more spells will be aimed towards the ground, and it's faster than running. The moment he's reaches the school boundaries and flies over the gates, he Disapparates.

Snape and Sirius almost come to blows again in the Entrance Hall when Sirius blames Snape for Harry running off. They're seen by a handful of students and by dinner the entire school knows that Harry Evans has run away.

Dumbledore sends Sirius and Lupin home, pointing out that Harry may very well go there, but when they get there it's clear Harry's already been—Kiwi is gone from where she normally sits on his bed, the photos stuck up on the walls from his month spent touring the country have all been taken down, and in the corner where his _Famous Figurine_ boxes normally sit there's only a pile of ash and melted plastic.

Harry flees to the Lake District, not knowing where else he can go. He finds a secluded spot in the woods, sits on a rock, buries his face in his arms and sobs.

* * *

After Harry ran off two years ago, Snape put an extra spell on the tracking pendant so that it would warm up or cool down depending on his distance from Harry, but in the wake of Harry's absence the pendant doesn't glow even once and the temperature doesn't change. Although sitting at body temperature when he wears it, his chest feels cold, even a week later when the school year ends, without the warm pulse he's grown familiar with.

When Cid and Tyler think to visit the owlery and check on Hedwig, they find her ruffled and morose. Cid takes her to Hagrid, who grooms her and encourages her to eat, but says there's little they can do for her. She's not sick, just depressed, and Cid takes her in to look after while Harry's missing.

Hermione and Neville instantly turn defensive when Draco appears at the door of their carriage on the ride back to London at the end of term, but he's alone and looking harassed, as he has for the past week.

"Have you heard from him?" he asks, not quite looking at either of them.

"What do you care?" Neville retorts. He knows who 'him' is without having to ask.

"A simple no would have sufficed," Draco says quietly, and leaves. Hermione and Neville exchange glances, but neither know what to say about it.

* * *

Kirith Karpel examines James closely for dark magic afflictions. Although there's obvious signs of dark magic cast both on him and by him and evidence of suppressed memories, she determines that it's not a curse of any kind that's creating his loyalty to Lucius. Remus and Sirius have mixed feelings. They're glad that their friend isn't cursed, but upset that his recovery is going to be that much harder. Kirith warns them that he'll never be the same person they knew in school and he will never fully get over what happened.

When James finally speaks, it's to call Sirius a blood traitor, Remus a mangy animal, and to claim Lily was a Mudblood whore. Sirius loses his temper and controls himself only when security gets called, stalking out with his fists clenched. Remus follows him, looking back sadly at what's become of his old friend. James tells the healers he doesn't want them visiting again.

"It's not his fault, Padfoot."

"I know, Moony, I just—I fucking hate Malfoy for doing this to him."

* * *

"The Black Family home. All yours, Albus."

Dumbledore runs a finger over the filthy table in the basement room. "Didn't the family have a house elf?"

"We did. Remus and I came by briefly before buying our house and the crazy little bastard hadn't dusted a shelf in twelve years so I gave him clothes. Feel free to get a new one. Oh, and you'll want to watch out for my mother."

At Snape's request, Dumbledore doesn't inform the rest of the Order about Harry's true parentage.

* * *

James has never had anything against healers. It's a perfectly respectable profession and Master considers healers worthy of the utmost courtesy, his wife having been one before. But it seems that every healer in St Mungo's psychiatric ward is a hypocritical, condescending, pretentious twerp.

They keep telling him that Master treated him badly and was wrong to lock him up, but as far as he can tell, they're doing exactly the same thing. He's imprisoned in this god-awful place, forbidden from leaving just like he was locked in Master's dungeon. When he does what they want, like forcing down every morsel of those dreadful meals, or taking those foul tasting potions, or sitting in the day room with the other patients, they smile and tell him how good he is and that he'll soon be better—more bullshit because there's nothing wrong with him—which isn't that different from when he would obey Master's commands and be rewarded with Master's attention or good food.

But when he calls Dennis from down the hall a Mudblood, or tries to pour his potions down the toilet, or foist his meals off to Melissa from the room opposite, they scowl and tell him off, and when he attacks the Mudblood for calling Master a racist bastard, they throw him in the padded room for a time-out. But it's just the same as Master—he would punish James for being disobedient or forgetting that his old friends are blood traitors, monsters, and Mudbloods. The only difference is that Master's punishments were real and painful. The healers think that shutting him in a room and keeping him away from the other patients is punishment; he _likes_ being alone in a room with no windows. It's familiar, comforting, being trapped away like that. The only bad part is that it's so _bright_.

* * *

After spending a few nights in the Lake District, Harry goes to London and finds a library. He immerses himself in books, spending every moment reading anything that will keep his mind off Voldemort, James Potter, and Snape—historical accounts, fictional stories, science textbooks. As long as it's interesting enough to keep his attention, he'll read it.

He's fine for just over three weeks, or as close to fine as he can be, but then the loneliness starts to get to him. He lives in the library, curling up in the reading corner when it closes for the night, and ventures out in the day to get food and drink. There's a toilet in the library; he makes sure of it before he chooses to live there. But all the books and the voice in his head don't make up for not having friends around him or even a godfather. It was alright when he was younger because he never had any friends so he didn't have anything to miss. Now though... he just wants to talk to someone for a bit, but he won't go home, too scared of being rejected, and he doesn't trust any of his friends not to tell on him. Hermione and Neville would probably write to Sirius, Remus, or even Dumbledore if he turned up at their houses; Tyler's guardian works for the Ministry so that's definitely not an option; and he doesn't actually know where Cid lives, nor whether he's staying with his dad or with his mum and step-father for the summer.

He runs out of his epilepsy potion a few days later, but he doesn't dare go to the hospital for more. They would definitely call Sirius.

* * *

The _Daily Prophet_ has a booming business that summer. Between reports of Albus Dumbledore's lies about the return of He Who Must Not Be Named, the discovery of James Potter and subsequent arrest of Lucius Malfoy, and the disappearance of the Boy Who Lived, they break record numbers of sales.

* * *

The Assistant groans unhappily when his Mark burns just as he's got a beautiful and well-endowed Muggle woman to agree to take him home with her. He kisses her enthusiastically, tells her he's just going to the gent's and will be right back, and slips away, stepping out the nightclub's back door to the dingy Bristol alley outside. It's empty and he turns invisible before Apparating away.

He reappears in a dark, unfurnished room he knows to be the sitting room of the Riddle House. His plan to Apparate in and immediately leave again is thwarted by the magic suppression runes painted on all four walls, stripping him of his invisibility and his blond-haired, blue-eyed disguise and leaving him trapped. There's a bang from behind him and instinct has him ducking his head and whirling to present his rune covered back. He staggers slightly from the impact of a spell, but it does nothing. He can't stop the ropes appearing and wrapping around him, though, knocking him off balance to fall to the floor. There's another bang and this time the spell hits the back of his head, stunning him instantly.

* * *

Draco is woken by a tapping on his window. He ignores it at first, knowing any owls will go to the kitchen if ignored and Dobby will take the letters, but it persists and he rolls out of bed, grumbling about stupid birds as he stumbles over to the window, yanks the curtains open, then gives a startled yelp because there's no owl outside his window. It's Harry Evans.

* * *

When the Assistant wakes, he's stretched out on a torture rack, stripped of his clothes, the leather binding his wrists and ankles marked with runes that render him powerless. The rest of the room has been cleaned of them and Voldemort stands over him, his wand out, alone except for Nagini, currently curled asleep in the corner of the room.

"Kinky," the Assistant says in a carefree tone. "Gotta wonder where the fuck you got this though. And really—Muggle torture devices? Disappointing."

In response Voldemort taps his wand to the crank and there's a clunk as the gears move, pulling the Assistant's arms and legs. He grimaces, but makes no noise.

"I have my ways, but you surprise me, Assistant. I did not expect you to come."

"You called, I answered. You should have a little more faith in your Death Eaters," he says, then snaps his fingers, managing it despite his position. "Right, except most of them abandoned you for fourteen years so you're not too happy with them right now. What excuses did they give for not coming to their master's aid?"

"What excuse do you give?" Voldemort asks and trails his wand over the Assistant's left forearm. "You bare my mark, though I didn't give it to you, and you have power that would have restored me. Why did you not come to my aid, to my _assistance_?"

The Assistant chuckles. "That's funny. Very clever. Don't quit your day job, though."

"Why did you not come to my aid?"

The Assistant sighs. "Fine, fine. Pretty simple really: I couldn't. I was stuck in Hogsmeade and it's surrounding environs for about sixteen years. Couldn't leave at all. Dreadfully boring after a while, but it was the choice I made."

"Why couldn't you leave?"

"Ask me another one."

Voldemort narrows his gaze and lifts his wand. " _Crucio!_ "

Ten seconds is like an eternity when it's filled with absolute agony, but the Assistant has endured worse.

"Come _on_ ," he pants when it stops. "You can do better than that."

Another tap, _clunk_ , and the Assistant winces.

"Why couldn't you leave?"

"Ask me another one."

" _Crucio!_ "

Twenty seconds this time.

"You can torture me all you want; I'm not answering the question. Ask me something else."

"You will tell me."

"Maybe, but not right now." He adopts an overly-dramatic seductive expression. "Our relationship just isn't ready for it yet."

Voldemort looks furious. " _Crucio!_ "

Thirty seconds, followed by tap, _clunk_ , and the Assistant groans and swears.

"I will make you talk."

"Never said I wouldn't talk," the Assistant gasps. "Just waiting for the right questions."

"Then answer this one: sixteen years—is that the point to which you travelled back in time?"

The Assistant gives Voldemort an approving look. "Figured that out did you?"

"It's the logical explanation."

"Yes, but you're not always logical. You do like to let your emotions get the better of you sometimes. A lot of the time, actually."

Voldemort looks at him angrily. The Assistant stares back, silently daring Voldemort to torture him again and prove him right. Voldemort doesn't.

"Why did you come back? What are you trying to change?

"Everything. And I succeeded."

"Is that so."

The Assistant shifts in a motion that, were he not stretched out so cruelly, might have been a shrug. "For a while, at least. Three more years and it'll reset. I'll have to do it all over again. Can I just say, I've always found it impressive how you can show so many expressions with no eyebrows. Especially confusion, like right now. Really quite remarkable how you manage to express that with a face like yours."

"Explain yourself, Assistant, before I force you to."

The Assistant raises his own eyebrows, a mocking smile playing about his lips. "Time loop, my lordship, sir. Y'see, the spell I used to go back in time didn't quite work out properly. So now I get to play the same nineteen years over and over again until I figure out how to break it."

"Tell me your name."

"You already know it. You knew it the moment you saw my true face in the graveyard."

"Tell me your name," Voldemort orders again. "The one your parents gave you at birth."

There's no smile on the Assistant's face now, no mocking glint in his eyes, just a carefully blank expression as he says quietly, "The name my parents gave me at birth is Harry Potter."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now you know his story, I can confess that the Assistant's name is a shout out to Doctor Who, in which time travellers have no known names, just a title (the Doctor, the Master, the Corsair, etc.).


	35. Chapter 35

Draco throws open his window. Harry hovers outside, sat astride a Firebolt, his magical eye moving around, scanning the house and grounds.

"Evans, what the hell are you doing here?"

"Can I come in?"

Draco steps aside, letting him fly through the window and land. He looks around the room with his real eye whilst his magical one stares towards the wall. After a moment, Draco realises it's looking in the direction of his parents' bedroom.

"Why are you here?" he asks again.

"I was lonely."

Draco gapes. "You were—you've been missing for weeks and now you show up because you were _lonely?_ And you come _here?_ "

"You're the only person I trust not to contact my—contact Sirius or Dumbledore or anyone else."

Draco stares at him for a moment then runs a hand through his hair. "That's great, Evans, I'm touched, really, but firstly, we're not friends—something you delight in reminding me, I might point out—and secondly..."

"Secondly your dad locked James Potter in a basement for fourteen years," Harry finishes quietly, both eyes fixing on the other boy. Draco swallows thickly. "You're not your father."

"I didn't know, Evans. I had no idea, and neither did Mother."

"I know."

Draco looks sceptical. Harry leans his Firebolt against the wall. "The papers said he was in a hidden room in the cellar. Your father's one, right?"

"Yes."

"If you'd known, you wouldn't have told me about it last summer, not like you did. You really believed there was nothing down there."

"I still don't understand why you'd come here of all places. Were you really that desperate for company?"

"I've been living in a library for three weeks. I haven't spoken to anyone since..."

_I'm offended. I thought we were developing a bond._

"Why did you run away?"

Harry turns away from him. "Can I sit down?"

"Yeah."

Harry sits on the edge of the bed, fiddling with the corner of his robe. He glances at Draco, who's wearing only a pair of boxers. "Are you going to put on a dressing gown or something?"

Draco looks down at himself then back up again. "You're the one who decided to turn up at my house in the middle of the night. If you're uncomfortable, that's your problem."

"I'm not uncomfortable. I just thought you might be cold."

"I'm not."

"Okay."

An awkward silence follows. Draco pulls out his desk chair and sits down. Harry continues to fiddle with his robe and not look at him. Eventually Draco sighs.

"Evans—"

"Why did you never tell anyone who I was?"

Draco's surprised by the question, but he answers. "I had nothing to gain from it."

Harry glances at him. "For a Slytherin, you're terribly honest."

Draco smiles. "The thing about being a Slytherin is everyone always thinks you're lying, so you can tell the truth and they don't believe you anyway."

"You say that like it's a good thing."

"It can be useful."

"You could have used it to blackmail me."

"For what? You've got nothing I want and like I said at the start of last year, I wanted powerful friends. Blackmail wasn't the way to do it. Bribery on the other hand..."

"That's why you invited me to the Quidditch Cup."

"Didn't quite work out how I planned."

"You kept trying though. Even when I told you I'd never be your friend."

Draco meets his gaze calmly, but his hands are tense. "Lyle told me you're asexual. Is it true?"

Harry shrugs, looking away again. "I don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know?"

"I mean..." He sighs, annoyed. "Maybe. Yes? I don't know. Do I have to be anything? All these labels are confusing. Why are we even talking about this?"

"Are you serious?" Draco says and Harry looks at him. "Merlin, you are," he breathes and runs a hand through his hair again. He looks at Harry for a long moment, his expression thoughtful, then gets up, crosses the space between them in two steps, and grabs Harry's face in both hands.

"I'm going to kiss you now," he says, and before Harry can argue with him, he's pressing his lips firmly against Harry's.

"That's why we're talking about it," Draco says when he pulls away.

"Oh," Harry says.

 _Um_ , says the voice, equally speechless for the first time Harry can remember.

"Tell me you knew, Evans. Everyone in Slytherin knows. Even my mother knows."

Harry flushes and doesn't look at him even though Draco's face is still just inches from his own and his hands are still on Harry's cheeks. "Well Tyler said, but I didn't—I mean, I thought... he and Cid, they teased me but..."

Draco's hands slip from his face and he steps back. "You're an idiot."

Harry stands, edging aside. "I should go. I'm sorry for disturbing you, I didn't—"

Draco grabs his wrist. "You're not going anywhere. I just kissed you and all I got was an 'oh'. This is clearly something that needs discussing."

_You know, if you mention that his father locked up your step-daddy for fourteen years, he'll let you go and you won't have to have this conversation._

It'd be a lie if Harry said he wasn't tempted.

"Sit."

Harry sits, reluctantly. He's not going to mention what Lucius did. However awkward he feels about their conversation, he's not nasty enough to bring up that just to get out of it. Draco pulls his chair closer, sitting so their knees aren't quite touching.

"You clearly have trouble with your sexual identity so let's keep things simple. Do you—and just to remind you that I'm not some Hufflepuff sod who'll cry and angst and start writing bad poetry if you reject me—do you fancy me?"

"No," Harry says in a small voice.

"Fine. Do you think you might fancy me one day?"

"Maybe?"

Draco sighs. "That's not helpful."

"I'm not a seer," Harry snaps. "I can't predict the future."

"Fine, just... forget about fancying. Did you like it when I kissed you?"

"It was... nice, I guess."

"You guess," he says dryly.

"Well it's not like I've got anything to compare it to. It wasn't horrible and... and I probably wouldn't mind doing it again, but I don't care if I never get kissed again either."

"That was seriously your first kiss?"

Harry folds his arms over his chest, defensive. "So?"

"I just didn't believe it when Lyle said you and him never had."

"Why would I kiss him? I mean, he's pretty, I guess, but... why didn't you believe him?"

Draco shrugs. "I thought he only said you hadn't because he thought I'd get jealous. He's kissed half the boys in your year. Half the girls too, by the sounds of it."

"He has?" Harry asks, surprised, wondering why Tyler has never mentioned it. "But I thought you and him were going out."

"We're friends with benefits, but without the friends part. Definitely not exclusive, in any case. Stop changing the subject; we're talking about us."

_Perspective bastard._

Harry sighs. "What do you want from me, Malfoy?"

"There's a lot of things I want from you, plenty of which would make that blush in your cheeks turn red enough to put a Weasley to shame, but I'll settle for knowing why you came here tonight when you've got other people you could have gone to for company."

"Everyone else would tell Sirius."

"Why don't you want him to know where you are? He's probably worri-" he breaks off, leaning forwards. "Are you crying?"

"No."

"You—Merlin, Evans, don't—please stop," he says a little desperately. "Look, I'm not going to tell Sirius. You don't have to cry."

Harry stands, rubbing at his eyes, angry at himself for being so emotional. "I should go. I shouldn't have come. I'm sorry."

Draco stands as well, grabbing his wrist again. "Go where? It's the middle of the night and you said you were living in a library."

"I'll find somewhere," he mutters, pulling his hand free.

"Stay here."

Harry looks at him, half-wary, half-suspicious.

"I mean it. You can sleep here for the night. My mother never comes in without my permission so you don't have to worry about her."

Harry's not worried about that. He's only visible to Draco; he doesn't want Snape or anyone else tracking him down.

_Say yes. We haven't slept in a proper bed in weeks. I don't care how comfortable you can make a floor, I want to sleep in a bed and his looks incredibly inviting._

"I'm not going to try anything," Draco adds when Harry hesitates, but with a hint of annoyance in his tone, as though offended that anyone would think such a thing of him in the first place, although it hadn't even occurred to Harry that he might. "That's a queen sized bed, Evans. There's plenty of room for us both. I'll put a shirt on if it makes you feel better."

"No, that's—you don't mind?"

"I wouldn't have offered if I minded."

Harry hesitates again, but the voice is enthusiastically encouraging him to and he can't deny that it'd be nice to sleep in a proper bed again. "Okay."

* * *

James wants to go home. He doesn't like the hospital. He doesn't like the food, or the potions, or the other patients. He doesn't like Sam, his personal psychiatrist, or the healers in charge of the ward. He doesn't like the nightmares of cold, dark rooms that have been plaguing him every night since he got there, and he especially doesn't like the fact that as the days go on he occasionally finds himself wondering if the healers are right and Master did treat him wrongly.

* * *

"Why did I allow you into my ranks?" Voldemort asks the Assistant. "Why did I not kill you?"

"My life was a whole lot different to Harry Evans'," the Assistant replies. "We're different people, and the people from my timeline are all different to the ones in this timeline."

"That's not the answer to my question."

"Yes, it is. I grew up with my dad—with Severus Snape—after your counterpart attempted to kill me as a baby, but he died when I was six and Lucius Malfoy adopted me a couple of years later. By the time your counterpart returned to power, I wasn't some sick, distrustful kid with more power than I knew how to handle, I was a Death Eater's child. I believed everything Lucius Malfoy stood for—everything _you_ stood for. Why on earth would you kill someone with my amount of power when you could have them kneeling at your feet instead, willing to obey your every order?"

"Are you still willing to obey my every order?"

"Can we have this discussion when I'm not stretched across the chopping board?"

Voldemort taps the crank, the gearsclunk, and the Assistant whines painfully.

"Answer me. Are you still willing to obey my every order?"

"Most of them."

"Not good enough, Harry."

The Assistant's gaze narrows. "For a man who despises his own birth name, you certainly lack the respect of calling others by their chosen names, _Tom_."

Tap, _clunk_.

"The Assistant is nothing more than a cover to hide behind. Your secret is out now, Harry Potter. You can use your true name."

"The Assistant is the name I chose in this timeline," he replies weakly. "My identity is irrelevant. And as a side note, it's not Potter, it's Snape. Dad raised me; it's his name I used, not James'."

"Curious that you were raised by him, when the Harry Potter of this... timeline... was not."

The Assistant closes his eyes and would have looked like a man relaxing if not for the sweat slicking his body, the pallor in his skin, and the tense lines in his face betraying the pain he feels. "It seems my very existence causes alterations even if I don't interfere. In my timeline, your counterpart killed James Potter the same night he killed my mother. In others, your counterpart has succeeded in killing my counterpart that night, too."

"How many of these timelines have you lived?"

"God knows. I lost count the first time I spent an entire timeline drugged up to my eyeballs, but I don't always survive the full nineteen years, and once I do—zap! Back to nineteen seventy-nine, physically reset to exactly how I was at seventeen years old, nothing but the clothes on my back and the memories of another timeline in which I failed to break the loop."

"Tell me what happened that made you attempt to go back in time, Assistant. You said you wanted to change everything. Why?"

The Assistant opens his eyes to consider him for a moment, then squirms the little that he can, winces, and sighs before answering.

"In my timeline, your counterpart retrieved the Philosopher's Stone from Hogwarts at the end of my first year. By the time I turned fifteen, he was in full power. I was utterly loyal to him, Dumbledore was dead, the Ministry was, as always, a pushover... the world was his playground. The Muggleborns were segregated, refused education, tortured and killed for pleasure. But he got cocky. Him and his Death Eaters were too drunk on power and things got out of hand. The Muggles found out about magic and he underestimated them. He thought his power and mine was enough to stop them, but their numbers were too huge and they've got some pretty impressive weapons of mass destruction. Magic hasn't advanced enough to defend us from multiple explosions, or tanks rolling through Diagon Alley."

"Mere Muggles cannot defeat Lord Voldemort."

The Assistant shakes his head. "That's what your counterpart thought. The Muggles aren't a threat to us only as long as they don't know we exist. Do you know what the current wizarding population of Britain is? About fifty thousand. The current Muggle population? Fifty _million_. They outnumber us a thousand to one. Their government is a lot more willing to play nice with foreign governments than our Ministry is. When they turn on us, it's _bad_. By the time I decided to hop back in time, there was talk of nuclear weapons. That's how determined the Muggles were to destroy us."

Voldemort says nothing for a while. The Assistant wonders if he's thinking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, at the time of which he was alive. Even the purest wizards with the most anti-Muggle ideals who were alive in 1945 heard about the destruction inflicted upon those cities.

"You tell a good story, Assistant."

"You don't believe me."

"Why should I? I have you tied and powerless, I killed your mother, I have attempted to kill you. Your thrilling tale is likely nothing more than an attempt to gain your freedom so that you can take your revenge."

The Assistant smiles, though it's strained. "There are two very important things you need to know, _my lord_. First: you are not the Voldemort who killed my mother any more than I am Harry Evans. My timeline, and everyone in it, is gone. To the best of my knowledge, it's never been recreated and all my attempts to do so have failed. I can only assume Lady Fate herself does not permit two identical timelines to exist."

His smile fades then and his green eyes seem to glow with power as he stares at Voldemort, his expression one that, even bound as he is, would make a lesser man run for the hills. Voldemort tightens his grip on his wand. "The second thing is that if I wanted you dead, you would have died in the graveyard before ever knowing I was there."

Voldemort's eyes are full of fury, but his voice is soft. "Would I?"

"Do not underestimate me."

Voldemort's mouth curls into something approximating a smile. He puts the tip of his wand to the edge of the Assistant's wrist, just below the leather holding him, and slowly trails it along the man's arm. A line of burnt red flesh trails behind it and the Assistant arches off the rack, choking back a scream at first only to let it out as the wand passes over his armpit and carries on down his side, passing over his hip and all the way down his leg to his bound ankle. Only then does Voldemort lift his wand, raking satisfied eyes up the line of burnt flesh before he moves to lean over the Assistant, red eyes staring into green.

"I have you at my mercy, Harry," he says softly. "I have you bound and powerless, and we both know I do not need a wand to hurt you. You would torture yourself for me."

The Assistant lets out a weak chuckle. "I'm not that much of a masochist."

"Even if I told you to kill Harry Evans?"

The Assistant says nothing.

"Lucius told me about the Animancupium. He believes you to be Bound by that old magic and it is the reason for your pitiful moaning in the graveyard."

"Bully for Lucius."

Voldemort moves around and puts his wand to the Assistant's other wrist, once again slowly dragging his wand down the Assistant's skin and speaking as the flesh burns.

"I told you not to help young Harry and yet you did, suffering obvious agony for your disobedience. If I told you to kill him, how long would you endure the pain before the Animancupium overwhelmed you and forced you to obey me?"

The Assistant doesn't answer, even when the wand leaves his skin and his screams give way to whimpers and moans.

"Tell me who you are Bound to. It's certainly not to me, and yet it's my orders you must obey or suffer for it."

"No one in this timeline," the Assistant answers weakly. His eyes are lidded and his pulse beats rapidly in his throat. "Can't tell you how pissed off I was about that. Travel back in time and I'm still Bound by his fucking orders."

"Whose?"

"Like I said, no one in this timeline."

Tap, _clunk_ , and the Assistant cries out.

"Tell me who your Master is."

The Assistant clenches his jaw and his body twitches, then he spits out, "Lucius Malfoy."

"Lucius is already Bound. The Animancupium does not permit two Bindings."

Surprise flickers through the pain. "He Bound James? Huh. But you're not paying attention—I told you, I'm Bound to the Lucius Malfoy of _my_ timeline, not yours. He might not be able to give me orders anymore, but I'm still tied to the bastard."

"The same Lucius who adopted you after your father's death."

"Yeah, well, turns out your counterpart wasn't quite so willing to trust that I was as dedicated to the cause as I claimed. He wanted me utterly obedient, so he had Lucius Bind me and give me two irrefutable orders: Always come when the Dark Lord calls, else I wouldn't have come tonight, and always obey him. That's the only time I know for certain he used my Trigger. I assume you've done enough research to know about that too?"

Instead of answering, Voldemort asks, "Why did my counterpart not Bind you himself?"

"Damned if I know. Consequently, my Binding to Lucius was also the reason I was stuck in Hogsmeade."

"Oh?"

"Tell you if you ease the stretching," the Assistant offers. "Otherwise I'm gonna pass out soon. Can't tell you nothing then."

"Talk until you do. Then I will wake you and you can talk again."

The Assistant closes his eyes and lets out a faint whimper, but opens his mouth and talks.

"After Lucius adopted me, Draco got shoved aside a bit. You know, he was a slightly above average wizard with attitude problems, but I was a super-powered whiz-kid eager to please... Draco became second best in everything but Quidditch the day I moved in, and Quidditch wasn't that high on Lucius' list of priorities. Didn't help that Narcissa was in prison before his tenth birthday. By the time we started at Hogwarts, Draco was desperate for someone to praise him, to give him a bit of the attention he deserved, and Dumbledore picked up on it immediately. He saw an opportunity to turn one of the Dark Lord's most loyal against his own family, bring him over to the light side, and he took it. By the time your counterpart returned, Draco was so taken with Dumbledore, that he denounced you. He stood by Dumbledore right up to his death and even then he refused to join us."

He pauses. His eyes are still shut, but his expression is bitter, mouth tight not only with pain but also hate and loss. When he speaks again, his voice is quiet. "The Dark Lord ordered me to kill him. I can resist your orders because you're only his counterpart so the compulsion isn't completely there, but him I had to obey. We weren't even fifteen. Lucius would have stopped me if he'd been there, but the Dark Lord correctly guessed as much and purposely kept him away. Lucius realised too late that he'd done wrong by Draco, and when it was over he hated me for it. The Dark Lord forbade him to kill me, so Lucius ordered that I was to remain at Hogwarts and Hogsmeade, unless called by the Dark Lord. Lucius never wanted to see me again."

He opens his eyes then, lifting them to meet Voldemort's. "But like I said, time travel didn't break the connection so I was still bound to obey him. I couldn't leave Hogsmeade until you called, but you didn't know I existed so my Mark only burned when you called for everyone, which this time around didn't happen until after you returned this summer."

He doesn't mention that after being summoned, he's free to go where he pleases. Over the years, he's learned to exploit every loophole in his orders, but he isn't about to mention _that_.

"So you aided me by allowing Peter Pettigrew to escape Auror custody," Voldemort says, fingering his wand, "because you knew he would seek me out and assist with my resurrection ritual."

"Yup. Aren't I nice? More than anyone else did."

"Yet less than what you could do."

The Assistant says nothing.

"You could have aided me sooner, Harry. You could have helped me retrieve the Philosopher's Stone. Why didn't you?"

"I was busy. Fell in love," he explains when Voldemort merely looks at him. "With a woman. Forgot all about you to be honest, until she left to go back to her husband."

Voldemort uses the Cruciatus again for that comment then leaves him under Nagini's watch while he goes to consider what he's learnt. As he leaves, the Assistant calls out, "You going to release me come morning? I wanted to see Lucius' trial. Be a shame to miss it," but he gets no response.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Animancupium is a combination of the Latin 'anima', meaning soul + 'mancupium', meaning property/possession. There will be more information about it later on in the story.


	36. Chapter 36

Harry wakes with a jerk the next morning, unsure of where he is and why he's sleeping in a large, warm, extremely comfortable bed. He looks around, sees Draco standing in front of a full-length mirror, and stares at him for a moment until the memories of the night before come back to him.

"How's your head?" Draco asks. He's fully dressed, wearing tailored robes over pressed, black trousers and gleaming pair of leather shoes, and doesn't pause in combing his hair as he speaks.

"My head?" Harry repeats, sitting up and rubbing sleep from his eyes. "It's fine. Why?"

"You had a seizure in your sleep, headbutted me hard enough to make my nose bleed."

"Sorry."

"I'll live."

There a tray on Draco's desk with some toast and a glass of juice on. "Breakfast for you," Draco tells him, gesturing to it. "That's what you normally have, isn't it?"

Harry nods, climbing out the bed and picking up his jeans from the floor. He'd slept in his boxers and t-shirt. "Thanks. Are you going somewhere?"

Draco turns before the mirror, inspecting himself and not looking at Harry's reflection as he answers. "My father's trial is this morning."

Harry looks away. "I should go," he mutters, grabbing his Firebolt. "Thanks for—"

"You can stay," Draco interrupts, finally turning away from the mirror. "Mother and I will be out most of the day and I've ordered Dobby—our house-elf—not to come in here. I've got my own bathroom, so you can shower," he says, waving a hand at the door, "and you're welcome to borrow a clean robe, though it might be a little too big, but it's better than putting on dirty clothes."

_Oh, go on. A shower's even better than having a bed to sleep in. Magical cleaning just doesn't do the job properly and you know it. I think we should really make the most of this. He's clearly smitten with you; we can use that to our advantage. Might have to—_

Harry shakes his head, ignoring the voice and pushing open the window. "Really, I should—thanks for letting me stay and everything, but..."

He trails off, not sure what he wants to say, and mounts the broom, flying out without looking at him. Draco goes over, leaning out and watching him fly away until he's too small to see, then sighs and pulls the window shut.

* * *

Sneaking into the Ministry is easy. Harry knows from reading about it how to get in through the visitor's entrance and then it's a simple matter of Wishing himself to look like an adult while simultaneously Wishing for himself to remain untraceable. He's caught off guard when he dials the number on the false telephone box and it asks for a name and the purpose of his visit, and quickly blurts out, "Tyler Lyle. I'm here to see Lucius Malfoy's trial."

As the visitor's badge pops out the change slot, he hopes Tyler won't mind him borrowing his name.

He walks slowly through the Atrium when the telephone box has deposited him, trying to look like he knows what he's doing as he follows the crowd. He comes up to the security desk and stands nervously as the gruff man runs a thin golden rod up and down his front and back then asks for his wand. Harry reluctantly hands it over and watches the man put it on a set of scales, which vibrate and spit out a small slip of parchment from a slit on the bottom. The man takes it, frowns, lifts Harry's wand and sets it down again, and takes a second slip.

"Eleven inches, phoenix-feather core, been in use thirteen years. That correct?"

"Yes," Harry lies. The man grunts, crumples the first slip of parchment and tosses it in a small bin behind him then sticks the second on a small brass spike before handing Harry his wand.

"Here. Next."

Harry follows the crowd to the lifts and realises he's got no chance of getting into one alone or with only a few people; it's simply too crowded. After spending a quick minute eavesdropping to find out where the trial is being held, he squeezes into one with several other people and watches the little paper aeroplanes flit about overhead as he rides it down.

_We should go up. I've been telling you to sneak in here for ages. This is a great opportunity, you realise. We could get into the Minister's office. In fact if we go now, it'll be empty. He's bound to be at Lucius' trial. We could find out all sorts of things._

He ignores it. He's not interested in spying on the Ministry.

Lucius' trial is being held in courtroom ten before the entire Wizengamot. Harry slips in with the other visitors, trying not to look suspicious as he walks into the room. He's forced to keep moving once inside, sliding into the viewing seats with the others. When he sits down, he's horrified to find himself almost directly behind Narcissa and Draco, but they don't look around, their backs stiff and gazes fixed firmly on the chair in the centre of the courtroom.

He's even more horrified when Sirius and Lupin sit down behind him. He glances down at his visitor's badge, Wishes for the name to change, and watches it edit itself to read _John Smith_. They might not recognise his face with the glamour up, but they'd recognise Tyler's name and be smart enough to realise who he really was. He starts to think he's made a bad decision by coming here.

There are murmurs when Lucius is brought in. Although dressed in good robes with his hair tied into a neat ponytail at the base of his neck, he's not as well-presented as the Lucius Malfoy Harry remembers from the Quidditch World Cup. There are shadows under his eyes, his face looks paler, and he doesn't have the air of untouchable grace, dignity, and power. He's accompanied by a single Dementor and Harry shudders in his seat, shrinking back as the horribly familiar coldness washes over him, now absolutely sure that he's made a terrible decision but realising it's too late to back out.

The Dementor doesn't come close enough or stay long enough to really hit him, but he sits in his seat hoping and praying that even the brief encounter doesn't trigger a seizure. As he listens to Cornelius Fudge announce the purpose of the trial and name the involved parties to the court scribe, Percy Weasley, Harry notices Dumbledore sat with the rest of the Wizengamot, though not in the Chief Warlock's seat. He's also notices the gaggle of reporters eagerly scribbling away in notepads from the press seats, and is surprised not to see Rita Skeeter among them.

When Lucius is asked to give testimony, Harry's surprised by how forthcoming he is.

"I was in Godric's Hollow as one of the few Death Eaters the Dark Lord took with him when he went to kill the Potters. I was stationed at the edge of the village, alongside a small woodland, to keep watch for Aurors or anyone else who might interfere with the Dark Lord's plan. James Potter came walking along the lane shortly after we arrived, evidently angry. I attacked and subdued him with the intention of handing him to the Dark Lord, however at that moment there was an explosion from in the village. I left James tied up in the woods, far enough back that he wouldn't be seen, and went to investigate. I found the Potters' house heavily damaged with Lily Potter dead inside, Harry Potter injured, and the Dark Lord gone. I realised that something terrible must have happened and knew people would be on the scene in minutes. I found a cat trapped under debris, killed it, and transfigured the body to look like James. I knew the Dark Lord would be back and would still want James dead, so I saw no reason to let anyone believe he wasn't already. After, I returned to where he was and took him back to my home where I locked him in the cellar with the intention of holding him there until the Dark Lord returned. I had not expected to hold him for so long. My wife Narcissa, and my son Draco, were never aware of him. They are completely innocent of all things related to the capture and holding of James Potter."

A long silence follows as the people in the court absorb it. Lucius sits with his expression calm, almost bored, as though he'd just described nothing more than his morning routine. The expressions of everyone else in the courtroom range from shock, to hatred, to disbelief. Sirius' is one of pure loathing and Lupin stares at Lucius with hatred burning in his normally friendly eyes. Narcissa's face is carefully blank and Draco's is mixed shock, anger, and distress. Harry feels a mess of emotions, none of which he can quite put a name too.

Dumbledore is the first person to speak. "Do you readily admit to being a Death Eater, a willing servant of Lord Voldemort?"

Lucius lifts his chin. "I do."

"Fourteen years ago, you claimed you were forced to do his bidding."

"Circumstances change."

"Would those circumstances be the return of Lord Voldemort?"

There's uproar.

"The Dark Lord has not returned," Lucius says when the courtroom eventually calms down. His gaze is fixed on Dumbledore and there's a slight lift to his lips, the barest hint of a smirk. "But when he does, I expect to be welcomed back with open arms and praises at my dedication to the cause. He will not begrudge my falsehoods years ago when it provided me the chance to keep James Potter safe for him. His discovery is a misfortune, but has the small benefit of allowing me to reveal my true loyalties."

"Then you deny that on the very night you were arrested, you were at a rebirthing ceremony for Voldemort?"

"Dumbledore!" Fudge hisses. "This is not—"

"I do deny it," Lucius interrupts the Minister. "As I told the Aurors, I was out with friends that night. The Dark Lord has not returned; when he does, I shall be among the first to know."

He's given a life sentence after admitting to using the Cruciatus and other dark curses on James during his imprisonment. Lucius's face is utterly blank of any emotion, but when the Dementor walks him out again and his back is turned to everyone in the room, fear flickers in his eyes.

Harry moves quickly past the reporters who are harassing Narcissa and Draco right outside the door after the trial. He feels bad, but not enough to stick around. He wants to get out of there and away from Sirius, and Lupin, but he's distressed to reach the lift and find them right behind him, along with Dumbledore. He tries to act normal, like they're just strangers to him, and hopes that some other people will come along before the lift arrives so he doesn't have to ride up alone with them, but he's not that lucky. It doesn't help that the voice is once again encouraging him to ride the elevator up to the Minister's office and have a snoop around.

They're halfway up to the Atrium when Lupin reaches over and jabs the emergency stop button.

"Remus, what—" Sirius begins, then breaks off when Lupin grabs the lapels of Harry's projected figure and shoves him back against the wall of the lift. Harry himself is just shoved backwards as Lupin suddenly slams into him, and the glamour breaks. Lupin staggers, jerks back, and stares at the empty space in front of him. Dumbledore quickly draws his wand and casts a spell that Harry doesn't recognise.

"He's here," Lupin says. "Harry?"

Sirius turns, looking around for him. "Harry? Kid, you here? C'mon, show yourself, we just want to talk."

Harry presses himself into the corner. He's not ready for this. He knows one day he's going to have to face them and talk about things, but not now, not like this.

He tries to Disapparate but slams into an anti-Apparition ward, a sensation he recognises from trying to Apparate into Hogwarts. He can't get to the button panel—Dumbledore's stood in front of it—and as Sirius moves closer, arms waving about in an attempt to find him, he realises that he's got no choice. He's not getting past them.

He drops the invisibility, body tense and still pressed into the corner, and all three adults widen their eyes, then Sirius grabs him by the shoulders and pulls him into a hug. His arms wrap around Harry tightly enough that he struggles to breathe, Harry's face is pressed into his shoulder, filling his nose with the familiar scent of him, and Harry's struck by an overwhelming desire to go home. Before he can stop himself, tears fill his eyes and spill down his cheeks and he grabs at Sirius' robes and sobs into his shoulder.

"Where the hell have you been, kid?" Sirius asks, still clinging to him, tears in his own eyes. "We've been worried sick about you."

Harry just cries harder.

"Let's get him home," Lupin says softly. "We can talk there."

Harry clings to Sirius' hand as he follows them out the lifts and into the Atrium, Wishing for no one to pay attention to any of them. They lead him over to the fireplaces lining the walls and Dumbledore leans in to mutter something to Lupin before he Disapparates. Lupin goes to a fireplace and floos through then Harry follows, hesitating as he steps into the flames but encouraged by the smile Sirius gives him, and throws down the floo powder and calls out "Black Stag House".

Minutes later, he's on the sofa in the living room, Sirius beside him and Lupin in the armchair opposite, and stares at his hands.

"Harry, why did you run off?"

He shrugs and doesn't look up. There's a lump in his throat and he knows if he speaks he'll start bawling again. Sirius reaches over and combs his fingers through Harry's hair.

"C'mon, kid, talk to us. We've been worried about you."

Harry glances at him then at Lupin, see the truth of it in both their faces, and swallows thickly, rubbing at his face as tears force their way out.

"I... I thought..."

"You thought what?"

"I thought you wouldn't want me anymore," he mutters, then bites hard on his trembling lip, trying not to break down into sobs. Sirius and Lupin exchange startled glances.

"Why would you think that?" Lupin asks, and Harry can't hold it back any longer.

"Because you hate Snape!" he cries, then chokes on a sob. "Y-y-you always said how g-g-great my—James was and I d-d-didn't want you to h-h-hate me because I'm not—I'm not—"

"Oh, you bloody great moron," Sirius says affectionately, pulling him into hug. "Harry, we'd never hate you. Don't you ever think that. You're my godson, Harry. There's nothing that'd make me hate you."

Harry doesn't speak again until his sobs have reduced to the occasional hiccup. "But you said... in the Hospital Wing... you were really angry..."

Sirius sighs, stroking his hair. "I shouldn't have done that. I shouldn't have accused Snape of raping Lily, especially not in front of you like that. I'm sorry. But whatever I think of Snape, it's nothing to do with you. It doesn't matter that he's... your father," he says as though the words leave a horrible taste in his mouth, "you're still my godson and I still care about you."

"As do I," Lupins adds, smiling warmly when Harry glances at him.

Harry pulls away slightly so he can lift his head and look at Sirius. "Snape didn't—he didn't... rape my mum... did he?"

"No," Lupin says firmly. "He did not."

Harry nods, swallows thickly. "But why... I mean, you always said mum and d- and James really loved each other. Why would she cheat on him?"

"We don't have the answer to that, I'm afraid."

There's a brief pause and then Sirius adds quietly, "Snape probably does."

Harry presses his face against Sirius' chest and feels Sirius' arms tighten around him. "I'm not talking to him. Ever."

"You'll have to talk to him when you go back to Hogwarts," Lupin points out.

"No I don't."

"He's a teacher and your Head of House."

"Don't care," Harry says stubbornly. He pulls away from Sirius slightly to look at Lupin. "How did you know it was me?"

"I didn't. I could smell you strongly and assumed the man had been in contact with you. I didn't realise it was you until I walked into you and the... ah..."

"Glamour," Harry provides.

"The glamour vanished."

"You smelt me? Really?"

"Werewolf," Lupin says with a self-depreciating smile. "It has very few benefits."

_Hopefully some that are less disturbing than his knowing your scent._

* * *

Snape sits in his armchair after Dumbledore's left, one hand wrapped around the emerald pendant hanging about his neck. It's cool, as though having been sat in a refrigerator for hours, and glowing slightly. A shot glass sits on the rickety table beside him, empty but for a few drops of clear liquid clinging to the sides. He wants to floo to Gloucestershire, where Dumbledore said Harry was returning with Black and Lupin, but he still remembers clearly the expression of utter loathing on Harry's face the day in the Hospital Wing and the pure hatred in his voice when he'd snarled, "You're _not_ my father." So he sits in his armchair, clutching the pendant that doesn't grow warm no matter how long he holds it.

* * *

Hedwig turns up at the house just hours after Harry does, when he's in his room putting his photo's back up. Despite his warm welcome back, he half expects it to have been cleared out, but everything except the burnt figurines is exactly as it was and he feels a rush of relief at the sight of it.

He throws the window open to let her in, smiling as she perches on his headboard, hooting softly and letting him pet her. Padfoot, who's curled on the bed watching Harry, transforms into Sirius.

"Your friend's been looking after her. Cid? The tall one that swears a lot."

"Yeah, that's Cid."

"You should write to him, and the rest of your friends. They've all been worried about you."

Harry doesn't look at him, feeling guilty. He realises now how ridiculous he was for running away, how stupid it was of him even if it felt like the obvious choice a month ago.

"There's something I don't get," Sirius says, watching him. "Why didn't you talk to us? Why just run away like you did?"

"I thought it'd be better if I just left instead of having to see you hate me."

Understanding crosses Sirius' face. "You preferred to walk out than be thrown out."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. _I'm_ sorry. I'm clearly doing something wrong in my godfatherly duties if you think I'd give up on you so easily."

"That's not true!" he cries. "You're a great godfather."

Sirius grins and Harry can't help smiling back.

"So how long have you had a Firebolt?"

Harry glances over to the broom, which Sirius is eying admiringly. It's still the best one available even two years after its release.

"I got it yesterday. I know I shouldn't have wasted my money seeing as I won't have so much anymore, but I wanted a broom and I couldn't resist that one."

Sirius frowns. "What do you mean you won't have as much?"

"I have to give it back, don't I? I'm not a Potter. It all belongs to James."

"It belonged to James and Lily and they left it to you, Harry. At most you'd have to give half of it back to James when he gets out of the hospital, but the rest is still yours. The two grand you got from Hopkins definitely is."

_Told you! You should consider opening your own vault though and transferring half of that money, just in case your dearest step-daddy does decides to claim it all back._

"What's wrong with him? James, I mean. At the trial, the psychiatrist said he's mentally unstable and that's why he couldn't testify. What does that mean?"

_It means he's crazy. Not unlike you. I'd say it runs in the blood, but..._

"Malfoy brainwashed him into believing all that pureblood idealist crap," Sirius tells him bitterly. "He turned him against us all."

"Can I... am I allowed to see him?"

"I'm not sure that's a great idea, kid. Last time we were there he said some pretty nasty stuff and he's tried to attack us."

"But he's being treated, isn't he? He's getting better."

"Hopefully. I'll contact the hospital," he offers, "and we can see if the healers think it's a good idea or not."

* * *

Just days after the trial of Lucius Malfoy, Narcissa Malfoy makes a public statement denouncing her husband's actions, reiterates his claim that she was ignorant of it, and announces her impending divorce and that she will subsequently be retaking her maiden name of Black.

* * *

During James' next session with Sam, his personal psychiatrist, he rants and rages about how he needs to get out. He doesn't say where he wants to go, just that he needs to leave the hospital. She listens, making notes and trying to talk him down, but nothing works. He attacks her, shouting threats and trying to get her wand, and it takes three healers to pull him off and sedate him. She's shaken but unharmed, and it's not the first time a patient has attacked her. If anything, she considers it progress. He's threatened her and every other healer before but never personally—it was always a threat of what 'Master' would do when he came to get James. ("He will, you know. He'll come for me and you'll all be sorry when he does.") She hopes that this personal attack and desperate need to escape means he's letting go of some of his attachment and giving up the belief that Lucius is coming to break him out.


	37. Chapter 37

The Assistant screams, writhing on the floor of a dusty and unfurnished bedroom in the Riddle House, to where he was moved the day of Lucius' trial. He was taken from the rack and given a robe, but his wrists were re-cuffed in metal shackles etched with magic suppressing runes and then tied to the wall with a length of chain. He was fed sporadically by Pettigrew and left a bucket to use for a toilet. Pettigrew and Voldemort are the only ones he's seen the last few days, which are filled with questions as Voldemort tries to learn everything that the Assistant might know from having lived through other timelines similar to the current, all of it interspersed with bouts of Cruciatus or other forms of torture when Voldemort thinks he's being untruthful or keeping things from him—such as now.

"Why did you not mention that your Animancupium Bond could be transferred?" Voldemort asks when he stops the Cruciatus.

"Why would I?" the Assistant rasps, curling up into a foetal position. "Why would I want to give power over me to someone else? More importantly, I don't want to be ripped away from my current Master."

"You current Master cannot even interact with you."

"He's still my Master." He groans and forces himself to get up to his knees, tilting his head back to look at Voldemort. "What does it matter to you anyway? You can still order me to obey you and I have to."

"You can fight. You told me yourself and I have seen you do it."

"I thought I wouldn't be welcome then. Ask me to join you, and I will be as loyal to you as I was to your counterpart."

Voldemort puts his wand under the Assistant's chin, pushing his head back further. "Is that so?"

"I swear it."

"Your word is not enough to me, Assistant."

He chuckles. "Alright, fair enough. Here's a deal: leave me alone for... what time is it? Like mid-afternoon? Give me until midnight and I'll prove myself loyal. I do that, you let me join the ranks without transferring my Bond. I don't, you can do the ritual and take it away. Deal?"

"I hope you are prepared to give yourself to a new Master, Assistant," Voldemort replies, turning and walking out, shutting and locking the door behind him.

* * *

Harry gets letters back from all his friends within days of writing to them. Cid expresses disappointment that he's no longer able to look after Hedwig and adds that he's glad Harry's safe only as an afterthought. Tyler says it's cool Harry's fine and asks where he's been, and then proceeds to rattle on about his summer (he's friends with Charlie again, and Alex's baby sister is walking and talking but still, in Tyler's opinion, an annoying little brat). Hermione asks multiple questions—is he okay? Where has he been? Does he want to talk about it? Has he considered therapy to help deal with the shock of his father's return?—and only briefly mentions that her own summer has been uneventful. Neville asks only if he's alright and offers to let him stay at his house for a few days if he needs somewhere to get away, then complains about homework and mentions the few things he's done in the holidays.

He writes to Draco as well, thanking him again for his hospitality and, after lots of hesitation and worrying whether it's appropriate, briefly expressing sympathy for Lucius' imprisonment. The man deserves it, but that doesn't mean Harry doesn't realise it must be hard for Draco to lose his father. He doesn't sign the letter, but ends it with a question: _You still want to be friends?_

* * *

Shortly after six o'clock, Voldemort is interrupted from planning ways to steal the prophecy from the Department of Mysteries by the door to the sitting room swinging open. He turns in his seat, a curse on the tip of his tongue to punish Pettigrew for not knocking first, but he pauses when he sees the Assistant, his appearance altered back to his blond haired, blue-eyed disguise, dressed not in the cheap black robe he was given, but a fine dark green one with his rune-covered cloak thrown over the top, prompting Voldemort to look around to where the cloak had been slung over the back of a chair. He'd intended to claim it as his own.

"Impressed yet?"

"Pettigrew."

The Assistant cocks his head. "Did you bang your head? I'm the Assistant, not the little rat."

"He let you out."

"Oh! No. Didn't you send him out to spy on James?"

"Then how?" Voldemort demands, rising to his feet. "If it wasn't Pettigrew, how did you escape?"

The Assistant smiles. "I'm not revealing all my secrets and you'd best not try because I'm not tied up now, so I don't have to stick around and let you torture me anymore. But the point is," he says, moving to get down on one knee before Voldemort, "I could have escaped anytime in the last few days. I could have just walked off and left, or even taken some revenge and tortured you, but instead here I am on my knees to profess my loyalty. So you're not going to transfer my Bond."

"Do you despise being Bound so much?"

"Only a man whose soul is his own would ask that."

Voldemort considers him for several long moments. The Assistant closes his eyes, waiting for his decision and hoping it doesn't involve more torture.

"I have learned," Voldemort says eventually, "that your information regarding the retrieval of the prophecy is correct and saved me a great deal of time on wasted endeavours sending other people to fetch it, and your actions this evening give credit to your desire to serve me, but you are not yet worthy of my trust. You will remain in the house unless I send you to do my bidding, in which case you will go only where I command and return as soon as your task is complete. You will obey my every command _to the letter_ or suffer the consequences. Prove yourself loyal to me, Assistant, and you shall retain your minor freedom."

The Assistant opens his eyes, lifting his head to meet Voldemort's gaze, holding it briefly before lowering his eyes and bowing his head.

"I am yours to command, my lord," he murmurs with complete sincerity.

* * *

Draco's reply comes on Harry's birthday, along with a Broomstick Servicing Kit as a present, which is a surprise. Draco says he's always happy to assist lonely little fourth years and he's more than welcome to come again, but via the front door, preferably, rather than through the window. He doesn't mention his father or Harry's sympathies, says the Broomstick Servicing Kit is to ensure Harry takes proper care of his new Firebolt, and also ends his letter with only a question: _Just friends?_

Sirius and Lupin have got him a cake and Harry can't help feeling a little undeserving of their joint present after the worry he put them through: _The Complete Encyclopaedia of British Wizarding History, Volumes 1-15_.

"Thank you," he breathes, running his fingers adoringly over the books. "This is amazing."

_I've figured it out. You don't want to have sex with people because you're too enamoured with books. You're not asexual, you're book-sexual._

"Are you alright?" Lupin asks him. "You look a little flustered."

"I'm fine. Just... I'm really grateful for this."

He discovers it's not so awkward to discuss his sexuality and relationships in writing than talking about it in person, and manages to reply to Draco's letter without feeling completely uncomfortable. He does lock his bedroom door though; he might be just about able to write to Draco, who, after all, kissed him and shared a bed with him, but he knows he'll turn into a blushing mess if Sirius or Lupin walk in on him. It still takes him a while to figure out what he wants to say and how to say it without offending the other boy, but when he remembers Draco's remark about not being 'some Hufflepuff sod who'll cry and angst and start writing bad poetry if you reject me' it's easier to say he doesn't think they should have a relationship considering Harry's complete lack of interest in having any kind of sexual relations with another person.

* * *

"Siri-"

"Shh!"

Lupin snaps his mouth shut, frowning and approaching Sirius, who's stood outside Harry's door, very obviously eavesdropping.

"What are you doing?" Lupin asks when he reaches the other man.

"Listen," Sirius whispers.

Lupin frowns, but his curiosity is spiked and he wasn't a marauder for nothing, so he leans close and presses his ear to the door.

"... in jail, he doesn't know anything and even if he wasn't you really think Lucius would tell Draco anything? ... that was nothing major, he wouldn't get told anything important, not about the Death Eaters ... what's Voldemort going to do with a teenager? He wants fully trained wizards, not kids ... oh yeah, he's really going to ask _me_ to join him ... he's _not_ my father and he's not a Death Eater ... he taught me to swim, remember? All the Death Eaters have the Dark Mark, I'd have seen it ... that's—fine, _maybe_ he is and he concealed the Mark, but ... I'm not making excuses ... shut up, that's not true and I'm not listening to you."

Sirius and Lupin look at each other, neither of them speaking for a moment, but Harry says nothing more. Lupin lifts a hand to knock but Sirius grabs his wrist and shakes his head. Lupin raises an eyebrow. Sirius glares. Lupin sighs. Together they move down the hall to their own bedroom, not speaking until they're inside with the door shut.

"Who do you think he was talking to?"

"If you'd let me knock, we could have asked."

"We were eavesdropping, Moony; he'd hardly have appreciated that." He runs a hand through his hair then rubs at the back of his head. "It sounded like he was talking to himself."

"That's not unusual. A lot of people do. You do."

"I don't tell myself to shut up and say I'm not listening."

"I'm sure it's nothing to worry about, Sirius," Lupin says, stepping forwards and slipping his arms around Sirius' waist. "He's spent a while on his own; he probably started talking to himself just to be able to talk. He'll stop after a few days."

"You think?"

Lupin kisses his stubbly cheek. "He'll be fine, Padfoot."

* * *

Harry's not impressed by what he reads in the papers as he catches up on all the news he's missed. Rita Skeeter has written nothing more—in fact she's been missing since the day of the third Triwizard Tournament task—but her last article about Harry being crazy set a ball rolling. He's become someone to be pitied, a deluded child whose brain trauma resulted in unfortunate mental health issues and a fondness for ridiculous stories like the return of Voldemort.

_Here's a question: would it be more or less infuriating if it wasn't true? They might think they're bullshitting for now, but what happens when the truth comes out that you really are just a deluded child who hears voices?_

"Oh shut up," he snaps, tossing the paper down.

A week and a half later, Harry packs a bag with a few overnight things and steps into the fireplace after opening a slip of parchment from Dumbledore that reads:

_The headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix may be found at number twelve, Grimmauld Place, London._

They've told him about the Order and what it's for, but not any details about exactly what they're doing, although Harry thinks Sirius wants to tell him more than they did. It explains why Lupin isn't home as much as he was the summer before and why Sirius looks worried whenever he's gone.

He floos out into a large, basement kitchen that's lit mostly by the fire he steps out of. It's gloomy and unwelcoming, as Sirius told him it would be, and filled with the acrid smell of pipe smoke. A few people sit at the table and they all look at him as he moves away from the fireplace, getting out of the way for Sirius and Lupin to come through after him.

He's introduced to Kingsley Shacklebolt, Bill Weasley, Nymphadora Tonks, Mundungus Fletcher, and Molly Weasley. As he's bustled out of the kitchen by Lupin—there's an Order meeting starting soon and he's not allowed to be involved despite his begging—he also passes an excitable man in a top hat who grabs Harry's hand and vigorously shakes it before carrying on towards the kitchen. They've almost reached the bottom of the staircase when the front door opens and Snape steps into the narrow hall. He freezes when he sees Harry and Lupin, and then there's a bang like a car backfiring as the troll-leg umbrella stand explodes, closely followed by an ear-splitting, blood-curdling shriek.

" _Filth! Scum! By-products of dirt and vileness! Half-breeds, mutants, freaks, begone from this place! How dare you befoul the house of my fathers_ —"

Sirius comes hurtling out of the kitchen and he and Lupin hurry forwards to grab the moth-eaten curtains on either side of the portrait. The moment the woman sees Sirius, she blanches, eyes popping.

" _Yoooou! Blood traitor, abomination, shame of my flesh!_ "

"SHUT UP!" Sirius roars as he and Lupin yank the curtains shut. Immediately the woman's shrieks die, leaving an echoing silence in the hallway.

"What was that?" Harry asks, lowering his hands from his ears.

"That's my mother," Sirius tells him. "What set her off? I heard a bang... what's this?" he asks, nudging a bit of leathery grey skin with his toe.

"That was your umbrella stand," Lupin answers, smiling. "I think you'll find more of it over there, and there, and there."

"Right, and why is it in pieces? Not that I'm complaining; bloody thing was horrible."

"I made it explode," Harry admits sheepishly.

"Why? Oh," he says, noticing Snape for the first time, still stood by the front door. Sirius gives him a filthy look then turns back to Harry, ignoring the other man. "Don't worry about it."

Harry doesn't look at Snape again, heading up the stairs after Lupin, who leads him to a room on the second floor where he'll be spending the next couple of nights while it's the full moon. Lupin leaves him there with an apologetic smile and says he'll be able to come back down to the kitchen when the meeting's over. Harry looks around the room, which has got twin beds, a rickety looking cupboard, and the same gloomy, dingy feel as the rest of the house.

Two loud _CRACKs_ sound in quick succession and Fred and George Weasley appear in the middle of the room. Harry jumps and staggers back, tripping over his own feet and landing painfully on his backside. The twins snigger and Harry scowls.

"What did you do that for?" he demands.

"We just thought we'd come and say hello," George says, holding out a hand to help him up.

"Didn't know you'd be so jumpy," Fred adds.

"Well you sound like a gun going off, anyone would be jumpy," Harry says, rubbing at his backside.

"Sound like a what?"

"A gun. It's a Muggle weapon and it's really noisy."

"Is that where you vanished to for a month—"

"—Hanging out with Muggles?"

"Pretty much," he answers.

"Doing what?"

"What's it to you?"

They both shrug and answer together, "Curiosity."

Harry gives them both a suspicious look, but moves back over to the bed and continues to pull out the book he'd been taking from his bag when they appeared.

"Blimey, is that thing big enough?" Fred says, and Harry glances down at his bag, but the other boy takes the book from him. " _The Complete Encyclopaedia of British Wizarding History,_ " he reads, " _Volume twelve_. Merlin, who'd want twelve books this big on history?"

"There's fifteen actually," Harry says, snatching it back and clutching it protectively to his chest. "And I do."

The twins exchange glances then George sidles over and flings a friendly arm around his shoulder. "Your reading ambitions are admirable, Evans, but we had plans for more informative activities that we were hoping you'd give us a hand with."

"Or rather, an eye."

Harry looks between them suspiciously. "Like what?" he asks, but the voice answers for them.

_The meeting, you imbecile. We can spy on it. How in Merlin's name did you ever become a Slytherin with such a complete lack of interest in other people's activities?_

"What use is spying on them when we can't hear what they're saying?" he asks the twins and the voice.

"You can see what they're doing, Evans," Fred says in an exasperated tone. "We can at least figure out something."

"We do have a great idea for a listening device called Extendable Ears," George remarks, "but finances aren't what they should be."

"And overbearing parents aren't as encouraging as they could be," Fred mutters.

"What d'you mean?" Harry asks, but Fred waves a dismissive hand.

"It's nothing."

There's a knock at the door then it opens before Harry can call for entry and Ginny and Ron come in, Ron looking grouchy and scowling at him, but Ginny gives a small smile and greets him.

"So, will you do it?" she asks, clearly aware of what the twins had come here for.

_Go on, you know you want to, and you're not getting any reading done with this lot hanging about._

"Fine," he grumbles, putting down his book and sitting on the bed, swivelling his magical eye to look down at the kitchen as the others all sit down as well. "Well, they're talking and looking at a bunch of scrolls."

"What's on the scrolls?" George asks.

"I can't pick out that kind of detail from this far, but your brother's pointing at something on it and—wait, Moody's about to—argh!"

He jerks back, blinking furiously as white spots fill his vision from the massive burst of light that'd exploded from Moody's wand.

"You alright? What happened?"

He shakes his head to try and clear his vision and looks back at the kitchen, but it's like looking at a solid black box.

"I think Moody realised what I was doing. I can't see in anymore, they must have charmed it."

"Well that was a waste of time," Ron says, getting up and slouching out the door again. Ginny gets up to follow him.

"Worth a try. See you later."

"What were you talking about earlier?" Harry asks the twins. "Extendable Ears?"

"It's just an idea we have," Fred says dismissively.

"One of many," George sighs.

"What, to invent? Joke things like you were telling Sirius about last term?"

Fred and George look at each other and Harry gets the impression they manage to have a silent conversation in the space of seconds, then Fred says, "We're only telling you this because you're the son of one Marauder and godson to another."

"We've got loads of ideas for joke shop items and we'd really love to start our own joke shop."

"But we haven't got the finances. We want to go to Gringotts for a loan—"

"—but our mother doesn't approve of our career plans and we're stuck in the house."

"Not to mention we can't be sure they'd give us one anyway, even with a good word from Bill."

"He works there," George explains when Harry frowns. "He used to be a curse breaker working in Egypt, but he got a desk job so he can join the Order."

Harry looks between them, thinking for a moment, then says, "I can give you money."

_You'd better not. That's our money._

'My money,' Harry thinks, biting his tongue to stop from replying out loud. 'And you're the one who says I've got too much and nothing to spend it on.'

"We don't need charity, Evans," Fred says sharply.

"It's not charity. I think you guys opening a joke shop is a great idea and I think Sirius and Remus and... and James would approve too."

_The Weasleys are blood traitors. If Sirius is right, your crazy step-daddy would probably burn any shop of theirs to the ground._

"I've hardly touched that grand I won from the Triwizard Tournament. I've got plenty of money anyway, so you can have the rest of my winnings from that. I don't need it."

"That's a lot of money to give away, Evans."

"It's to a good cause. With Voldemort—" the twins flinch "—back everyone's going to need a good laugh. You've only got one more year at Hogwarts, so that's a year to set yourselves up and get things started."

"Are you sure about this?"

Harry nods. "Like I said, I've got plenty of money and nothing to do with it, and you've got a great idea. It's a win-win situation."

"You know, Evans," Fred begins, grinning.

"You're not so bad for a Slytherin," George finishes.

* * *

"Why don't you take that down?" Harry whispers to Sirius later when the meeting is over and they're creeping past Mrs Black's portrait to the kitchen for dinner.

"We've tried but it looks like she put a Permanent Sticking Charm on the back of the canvas."

Harry glances back at it, makes a Wish, and there's a thud and a shriek. As the portrait's angry screams fill the house, Sirius looks at Harry, who shrugs and grins, and Sirius chuckles.


	38. Chapter 38

Harry gets roped into helping clean the drawing room. He wouldn't mind so much if he could use Wish Magic, but he isn't revealing that to the Weasley family, least of all Ron, who makes it perfectly clear he doesn't think a potentially insane Slytherin should be in the headquarters for the Order of the Phoenix, even if he is the Boy Who Lived and Sirius' godson.

 _He'd shut up if you pointed out that you were the one who saw Voldemort return and none of them would know about it if it weren't for you_ , the voice points out, but Harry doesn't think that'd help. Ron would probably start accusing him of helping Voldemort willingly or something.

They spend the morning clearing out the doxy infestation in the curtains, and then after a lunch of sandwiches that Mrs Weasley brings up they start clearing out the cabinets, which proves harder than expected because certain items are reluctant to leave the dusty shelves and others are hexed or jinxed. Harry doesn't mind cleaning the cabinets so much because Sirius arrives to help out, thus meaning he's not left alone with the Weasleys, but Sirius regrets the decision when a snuff box bites him. Harry gets distracted by a book titled _Nature's Nobility: A Wizarding Genealogy_ until Sirius snatches it from him to flatten a pair of many-legged tweezers that try to stab Ginny when she picks them up.

 _Take it_.

Harry doesn't even think about arguing. The locket is heavy and refuses to open and Sirius says to chuck it in the rubbish with everything else, but Harry Wishes it invisible, creates a duplicate, and tosses that in the rubbish while pocketing the real thing.

He inspects it later, in his borrowed room with the door locked. It's as large as a chicken's egg, inlaid with many small green stones in the shape of an _S_ , glinting dully in the candle light of the room.

"Why did I steal this?" he mutters, falling back against the pillows and holding it up by the chain, watching it spin slightly. Draco might say he's got no fashion sense, but even Harry's aware that the locket isn't something anyone with decent taste in apparel would wear.

 _Because_ , murmurs the voice.

"Because what? It's ugly, it won't open, and there's no point in me selling it even if it's worth anything."

But the voice, for once, is silent. He sighs, drops it into his bag, and rolls over to sleep.

* * *

When Harry gets back home, he practices using Wish Magic in front of a mirror to change his features. He figures that if a normal witch or wizard can do it, then so can he even if he isn't a Metamorphmagus like Tonks. If he ever decides to disguise himself again, he needs something better than the glamour which fell apart so easily in the Ministry.

Sirius hears a crash and goes up to investigate when he gets no response from Harry and finds him seizing in the bathroom, bleeding profusely from a cut along his right temple, which hit the sink when he fell, judging by the blood on the rim. Sirius moves him into the hallway where he's in less danger of hurting himself further and then anxiously waits for it to stop.

Sirius insists on taking him to the hospital afterwards because of the blow to his head. Harry doesn't argue even though he feels no worse than he normally does after a seizure. He still needs to pick up more of his epilepsy potion. When they get there, to Harry's surprise he's not seen by any of the healers in the A&E department, but by Kirith.

"Hello, Harry, it's been a while. How are you?"

"I'm okay. Bit beat up," he says, pointing to his head.

"Yeah, I can see that. Let's have a look. What happened?"

"Had a seizure, hit the sink on my way down."

"Well the wound isn't bad," Kirith says, healing it with a quick tap of her wand. "How you feeling? Dizzy, headache, more sleepy than normal?"

"No, I'm fine," Harry replies as Kirith peers into his eyes, shining a thin beam of light from her wand at the normal one, then taking Harry's wrist and checking his pulse.

"Tell me your name."

"Harry Evans."

"Where are you?"

"Saint Mungo's hospital."

"The date?"

"Sixteenth of August."

"And where did you vanish to for a month?"

"Lon-" he breaks off. "That's not a normal question to ask when checking for concussion."

Kirith smiles. "No it's not, but you had us all worried about you. You were meant to come for an examination last month. Eyes and head."

Harry stares guiltily at his hands, but Kirith just finishes checking his pulse, still smiling.

"I'll book you in for one as soon as I can, but it probably won't be until after school starts. I know how fond you are of it, though, so I'll try and make it a weekend appointment.

"Everything alright at home?" she adds as she finishes the check up and Harry looks at her in surprise.

"Yeah. Why?"

She steps away, pulling closed the curtain around the bed and activating the complete privacy charms, preventing anyone beyond them from hearing what they say. "I know that Severus Snape is your father."

Harry glances away, jaw clenching. "Who told you?"

"I'm involved with James' physical recovery and when I dug up his archived medical files, I noticed they didn't match what Professor Snape gave me the first time I saw you. I confronted him about it—accurate family medical history is important—and he told me. I know it must have been difficult for you to learn about it, and I know Snape and your godfather don't get along, so I want to make sure things are alright at home. That your relationship with Sirius hasn't been badly affected by this news."

"It's not," he assures her. "Me and Sirius are fine."

"What about you and Snape?"

"I _hate_ him," he answers viciously.

"Because he never told you?"

"Because he left me with my aunt and uncle. I'm supposed to be his son and he just left me there, and then he had the nerve to act like a guardian to me when I got to Hogwarts. He had no right to do that."

The curtain rail above them and the bed frame are both rattling and Harry forces himself to breathe in deep and let it out slowly, getting his magic back under control so they stop. Kirith glances down at the clipboard with Harry's notes on and scribbles something then says, "I've got a friend working in psychiatry. If you want, I can get you a referral. It might—"

 _NO!_ the voice shouts, and Harry echoes it, then, when Kirith looks startled, adds, "Sorry, I just... I don't need to see a psychiatrist."

 _Last thing I need is you getting friendly with some head shrink and spilling the beans on me_.

"Alright," Kirith says calmly. "If you change your mind, drop me an owl. I'm always happy to help my favourite patient."

* * *

"Hey, kid, can we have a word?"

Harry folds the corner of his page and sits up on his bed as Sirius and Lupin come in, Lupin taking the chair at the desk and Sirius joining Harry on the bed. "About what?"

"Severus," Lupin says, and Harry scowls.

"Nothing to talk about."

"Harry, we understand why you're angry at him—"

"No you don't. You can't understand any of it."

"You're not the only one that came from a bad family, kid," Sirius says. "You're not even the only one to run away from home. I did."

"You did?"

"You saw my house, you met my mother. You really surprised I wanted to get away from that place?"

Harry shrugs, looking down. "It's not the same."

"No, but I get what it's like to hate your parents."

"I'm still not talking about it. He hates me, I hate him. That's all there is to it."

"He doesn't hate you, Harry," Lupin says.

"If that was true, he wouldn't have left me there. I'm not talking about it," he says again, picking up his book, opening it and staring at the page. Lupin and Sirius exchange glances, Lupin gets up, and Sirius sighs, reaching over to ruffle Harry's hair before standing as well.

"Dinner's in half an hour," he says, following Lupin out and closing the door behind them. When it clicks shut, Harry sighs, puts the book aside and flops down against the bed, pressing his face to the pillow.

_It's no use wishing Sirius was your dad. We'd still have been abandoned as a baby. He went off and got thrown in prison, remember?_

"He might not have if he had a kid to look after."

_He did have a kid to look after. He was supposed to look after you, his godson, but he was more interested in revenge. Face it, adults are unreliable and only interested in you so long as you don't interfere with the rest of their lives._

* * *

Wormtail squeaks. Voldemort gives an aggrieved sigh. The Assistant, lying on the floor under the kitchen table, can easily imagine the irked expression on his face even if he can't currently see it.

"Where's Pettigrew?" Voldemort asks, clearly deciding not to comment on the state of the kitchen, which is currently filled with a maze of plastic tubes designed for exercising and entertaining small rodents.

"Um..." The Assistant squirms forward a little, turns his head and looks around the kitchen, then answers, "About to fall into the sink, from where he'll have to pass through the pantry to get out. I think. Or possibly through the cooling cabinets and down—"

Voldemort draws his wand and with a wave the maze collapses. The Assistant watches it all crash down around him, not moving until the noise has faded and Pettigrew, human once more, is picking himself up out of the mess. The Assistant wriggles out from under the table and gets to his knees, dusting off his front.

"I spent all morning building that."

"I am growing weary of you, Assistant."

"I'm growing weary of being stuck in this house, my lord. It's been three weeks and you haven't even let me down to the village to get laid. We carry on like this and I'll have to resort to shagging Wormtail, and let's face it, he's no one's ideal bed mate."

"Hey!" Pettigrew cries. They ignore him.

"Unless you're willing," the Assistant adds with a suggestive wiggle of his eyebrows. Voldemort's response is to hit him with the Cruciatus Curse.

"Y'know," the Assistant says when it's done, "I'd be less inclined to make annoying comments if you'd give me something to do." He gets to his feet, waving a hand to vanish the mess of broken tubes, and faces Voldemort. "In all seriousness, my lord, there's little point in having me if you don't use me."

"I will use you when I have need to. For now, you will return to your room."

The Assistant clenches his jaw, but nods stiffly and bows before stalking past him and out the room.

* * *

James doesn't look like the man in Harry's pictures. That man was young, full of life, and happy. The James Potter sat in a chair opposite Harry, with a psychiatrist to one side, is old beyond his years, brown eyes haunted and shadowed behind his round glasses, pale face covered with several days growth, and fingers tapping restlessly as he inspects Harry as closely as Harry inspects him.

"So," James says eventually in a rough voice. "You're the Mudblood's bastard."

"James," scolds Sam, the psychiatrist. "Language. We discussed this."

James doesn't even glance at her. Harry swallows. She told him what James is like, but that doesn't prepare him for hearing the man he'd always believed to be his father calling him a bastard and his mother a Mudblood.

"She was your wife," he says, not sure how else he's meant to respond. "You loved her. Everyone says so."

"They're wrong. I was wrong. It wasn't real; I was just young and stupid. She was a cheating Mudblood whore."

"She was my mum," Harry says quietly.

Sam said she already knows about Harry's true parentage from James and that she's bound by confidentiality to James not to reveal anything from their sessions. Harry isn't reassured by that, not after what Hopkins did, but he doesn't see that he has any choice.

"Master told me it was Muggles who did that," James says, looking at Harry's magical eye.

He nods. "My uncle."

James' eyes flick sideways as he searches his memory, then look back to Harry. "Petunia's husband?"

Harry nods again. James leans forward in his seat. Sam tenses a little.

"It's proof."

"Proof of what?"

"Master's right. The Muggles and Mudbloods. They hate us and they want to hurt us. They did that to their own family; what would they do to the rest of us? They need putting down before—"

"That's enough," Sam interrupts. "James, today is supposed to be a chance for Harry to meet you. Be polite, or we'll end it now."

James shoots her a murderous look. "He is meeting me. This is who I am. I didn't ask any of you to try and change that and if he doesn't like it it's his problem, not mine. I didn't ask him to come here."

_I'm starting to like your step-daddy. If nothing else, he's honest._

"Would you have raised me?" Harry asks. "If Lucius hadn't kidnapped you, would you have raised me after Mum died?"

James doesn't answer immediately and Harry thinks he looks almost conflicted, but then his face sets. "I'd have given you to your father and let him raise his own bastard."

"James," Sam murmurs warningly.

"What?" he snaps. "It's the truth. He's a bastard child, nothing more."

Harry gets up. "I want to leave now."

Out in the waiting room, Sirius staggers a little when Harry barrels into him and wraps his arms around him in a tight hug. Sirius hugs him back and looks over to where Sam's just coming out of the meeting room with James. James shoots Sirius a filthy look and jerks his arm away from Sam when she touches it lightly, stalking down the hall towards the rest of the ward.

"You alright, kid?"

"I want to go home," Harry replies, voice muffled against Sirius' chest.

* * *

The Assistant sits on his bed with a slingshot, conjuring small pebbles which he shoots at the paper aeroplanes whizzing about the room. When the door opens, he shoots a pebble towards it and is rewarded with the satisfying sound of Pettigrew's high-pitched shriek as the small rock flies past his ear. The Assistant chuckles, unbothered by the glare the smaller man gives him.

"You almost hit me!"

"Almost being the key word. If I'd wanted to hit you, I would have. What d'you want, Peter?"

"The Dark Lord wants to see you."

"Huzzah," the Assistant says, leaping off his bed and vanishing the aeroplanes and slingshot, then pausing. "Does he actually want me to do something or is he just in a mood and looking to torture someone?"

"I don't know. Go find out. I'm going to bed."

The Assistant sweeps into the sitting room and kneels before Voldemort, murmuring a polite greeting then standing when Voldemort tells him to rise.

"How are your mind-altering skills, Assistant?"

"Pretty good. What sort of mind-altering are we talking about?"

"Wormtail has been spying on James Potter for me. He is under guard at Saint Mungo's hospital, but his recovery is making little progress. I need you to sneak in and encourage it enough that things speed up, but not so much as to draw suspicion. James Potter is of little use to me in Saint Mungo's psychiatric ward."

The Assistant nods. "I can do that."

He creeps into Saint Mungo's during the night, stealing into James' room, and looking down at the sleeping man. He's clearly in the throes of a nightmare, his face tense, forehead covered by a thin sheen of sweat, letting out small, distressed whimpers. The Assistant lays a hand on the dark hair and closes his eyes as he works. It takes a few minutes, a task that requires stealth and caution to ensure that James' recovery seems natural. When he's done he removes his hand and slips out again, silent and unseen by anyone.

* * *

"I want you guys to have this."

Lupin takes the Invisibility Cloak from Harry, exchanging glances with Sirius. "Why?"

"Dumbledore only gave it to me because he thought James was my dad, but I don't need it and you're his friends so you should have it. Also, my booklist finally came."

It's the last day of August so he has to go to Diagon Alley that same day. Sirius and Lupin both accompany him to buy his stuff and help him open a Gringotts account. He takes precisely half of what's in the Potter vault and transfers it to his own. He also deposits the locket he stole from Grimmauld Place. The voice insists on keeping it, but it makes Harry feel weird and uncomfortable and he doesn't like having it in his room. Keeping it in his vault appeases both of them.

Harry doesn't react when Draco slinks up behind him in Flourish and Blotts while he's browsing Defence Against the Dark Arts books. The assigned one doesn't look impressive and given their history of Defence teachers, Harry wants something useful for the possibility of yet another Lockhart. For a moment neither boy speaks then Draco says, "You can see me, can't you?"

"Yep."

Draco sighs, shifting to stand beside him, turning and leaning back against the bookcase, folding his arms over his chest. "Well I suppose you don't have to worry about anyone stabbing you in the back, but heaven forbid someone try to romantically sneak up on you."

"Is that what that was?" Harry asks lightly.

 _Did you just_ flirt _with him?_ the voice asks incredulously.

'No! That wasn't flirting.'

_Sounded like flirting. Looked like flirting._

'It wasn't. Was it?'

The voice just laughs at him.

Draco scoffs. "Romanticism is best left to Hufflepuffs, Gryffindors, and eighteenth century artists, and you turned me down, remember?"

Harry looks at him with his magical eye, but doesn't mention their following correspondence, which had included Draco asking if there was ever the chance of them getting together, and Harry replying that there was a very minor possibility.

"Are you here with your mother?"

Draco nods. "She's at Gringotts. I'm just getting my books before meeting her at Twilfits and Tattings. I'm getting some new robes to go with my new status."

Harry frowns, pulling a book off the shelf. "New status?"

"You're talking to Slytherin's newest prefect."

"You made prefect?"

Draco looks offended. "You thought I wouldn't?"

Harry shrugs, grinning and looking down at the book, flipping it open to check the table of contents. "I didn't think about it at all, but it could just as easily have gone to Theo Nott or Blaise Zabini."

"You offend me, Evans. I'm clearly the only choice for prefect."

"If you say so. Who's the other one?"

Draco shrugs. "I don't know yet, but I'd be willing to put money on Pansy."

"Really?"

"Well it won't go to Millicent Bulstrode; she's too thick. Tracey Davis got caught shagging Montague in a classroom last spring and she's got a record for hexing Hufflepuffs, so she won't get it, and Daphne Greengrass... well, she's about as remarkable as a pig in a pigsty. She probably didn't even occur to Snape as an option."

"You hex Hufflepuffs," Harry points out, ignoring the mention of Snape, whose mere name makes him angry. "And Gryffindors, and Ravenclaws."

"Yes, but I don't get caught, so it's unimportant."

Harry rolls his eyes, but he's smiling. He gets a couple of books on Defence that look useful and a few extra books on runes as well. It was runes that left him so powerless in the graveyard; he wants to know exactly how and if there's any way to counteract them.

* * *

Sam sits with James in his room, watching him and not saying a word. Since the time he attacked her, he's sat in sullen silence through most of their sessions, glaring at her. Today he's curled in the chair in the corner, legs drawn up, one elbow leant on his knee whilst his hand rests against his scraggily hair, fingers of the other hand tapping restlessly against the chair's arm. He's staring at the wall, but every so often he'll glance at her as if he wants to say something but never does. She keeps quiet, knowing that if she says the wrong thing he might never say what he clearly wants to.

There's ten minutes left of their session when he finally says, "I'm not betraying him."

She's heard the words before, but usually they're shouted in defiance. This time they're said hesitantly, almost asking for confirmation.

"No one's asking you to."

"I'm not—" He cuts himself off and stares angrily at the wall. He doesn't say anything else for the rest of the session, but it's progress.


	39. Chapter 39

That evening Sirius and Lupin sit Harry down in the sitting room with serious expressions on their faces and say, "We need to talk about Snape."

Harry scowls and folds his arms over his chest. "I told you I don't want to."

"We know, but the last time you saw him you blew up an umbrella stand," Lupin reminds him.

"I didn't mean to," he say sulkily.

"We know that," Sirius assures him. "But your magic is volatile and that's going to be a problem for your Potion lessons. We don't want you or anyone else in the classroom getting hurt because you're too angry at Snape to control your magic."

_You could always just direct your anger so that only Snape gets hurt. That would hardly be a loss._

Harry's can't think of a good reason to argue with it, nor does he want to.

_Might be messy though, blowing up Snape. There'd be blood and guts everywhere. It'd definitely ruin any potion the class was working on, but it would be a one time thing so it might be worth it. Of course there is that slight matter of being imprisoned for murder, but if your godfather can break out I'm sure we can._

Lupin and Sirius exchange glances as they watch Harry's face twitch slightly. He's still scowling, arms folded over his chest, but there's a definite sense that he's not all there, though not in the way they've come to expect from his focal seizures.

"So what do you expect me to do?" Harry asks grumpily.

"We've come up with two suggestions," Lupin says. "One is that you take a Draught of Peace before each Potions class."

"You think that would work?"

Lupin reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small vial of purple potion. "We can test it now."

"What's the other suggestion?"

Sirius leans forward to rest his elbows on his knees. "You wear magic suppress-"

"No."

"It would only be for the duration of Potions classes. The rest of the time you wouldn't wear them."

"They nearly killed me," Harry snarls. "I'm not wearing them."

"Then you'll have to try the potion now," Lupin says.

"And if it doesn't work? If I still blow things up?"

They don't answer, but Sirius doesn't quite meet Harry's gaze.

"You'll force me to wear the cuffs."

"Your magic is volatile, Harry," Lupin reminds him. "You put yourself and other people in danger when you can't control it. We're only looking out for your best interests."

_Funny how that involves controlling you and forcing things on you._

He thrusts his hand out for the potion. "Fine."

Lupin hands it over and he unstoppers it, pausing to ask how much he needs then downing a mouthful. The effects are immediate. He feels his whole body relax and he doesn't care so much that they're talking about Snape or that Lupin's standing up and throwing floo powder into the fireplace, kneeling and sticking his head in the flames then calling out, "Hogwarts, Severus Snape's quarters."

Nothing explodes when Snape steps out of the fireplace. Harry still hates him and he's still more than glad when he leaves again, but he doesn't blow anything up or feel more than a mild desire to see him eaten by a Manticore. The voice in his head is completely silent.

That night, Harry dreams of walking down a corridor that ends in a locked door. It's not the first time he's had that dream—it's been plaguing him all summer—but it's annoying. Every time he does have it, he wakes up feeling frustrated and with his scar prickling.

The next morning, Harry floos into Grimmauld Place with his trunk shrunken down in his pocket with Hedwig's cage in his trunk, having already sent Hedwig flying ahead, and gets greeted by the sounds of Mrs Weasley shouting at her children to hurry up and get their things down by the front door. Harry's going to King's Cross with them all, under the guard of some of the Order members. They walk there, a twenty minute trip that Harry takes with Sirius, Lupin, and Tonks (disguised as an old woman and walking along a small distance behind them). At the station, Harry says his goodbyes to Sirius and Lupin, shakes Tonks' hand, and boards the train, finding a compartment, enlarging his trunk and stowing it away before settling into the seats.

He's joined by Tyler and Alex Stone not long after the train's set off, then Cid comes along and sits with them. Harry's not surprised when the discussion of what they've done all summer turns to his disappearance.

"Did you run off because of your dad?" Alex asks, then yelps when Tyler jabs a finger in his ribs.

"Yes," Harry answers honestly, and they all look at him curiously, but it quickly turns to disappointment when he adds, "But I don't want to talk about it, or what happened at the end of last year."

Hermione and Neville stop by the compartment a little after lunch. They've both been made prefects, much to Hermione's pleasure and Neville's apparent shock, and Harry congratulates them before they carry on with their patrol.

Later, he's just returning from the toilet when he comes across Fred, George, and Lee Jordan laughing raucously as they shove Draco from a compartment. Draco's got blood pouring from his nose, soaking the front of his robes and making his already pale face look bone white in comparison, and he's retching, dropping to one knee as he vomits all over the floor. Harry pushes through the crowd of onlookers, none of whom move to help.

"What the hell did you do?" he asks the three Gryffindors, crouching by Draco.

_Tried to kill him by the looks of things._

"We needed someone to test our new Skiving Snackboxes on," Fred answers, still grinning. "He volunteered."

"Volun- he's bleeding all over the place. He can't breathe, for Merlin's sake. Have you got a cure?"

"What for? The snake deserves it for what he did to your dad."

Fury fills Harry. He only just thinks to draw his wand and point it at Draco, murmuring nonsense as he Wishes for the nosebleed and the vomiting to stop. When he's sure the other boy is no longer in danger of suffocating or choking, he straightens up, turning on the Gryffindors. The humour leaves their faces as he raises his wand, face furious.

"Lucius Malfoy imprisoned James, not Draco," Harry snarls. "Draco didn't even know about it."

"Like hell he didn't," George says. "Your dad—"

"Is _my_ fucking dad!" Harry yells. "Not yours! Draco had nothing to do with it. I believe that and I'm the only person it should matter to. If you—or anyone else," he says, looking around at the people watching all along the corridor and poking their heads out of compartments, "attacks Draco again because of some misguided need to take revenge for James Potter, you can answer to me. Draco is my friend; I'm not going to let anyone attack him for what his father did."

He stalks forwards then and grabs George's arm, standing on tip toes so he can hiss in the other boy's ear, "I gave you that money to start your shop, not to make things you can use to bully people. Don't make me regret it."

He vanishes the vomit and blood on the floor with a murmured, " _Evanesco_ ," then orders a group of first years out of a compartment and pulls Draco inside, shutting the door behind them.

"You alright?"

"My robes are _ruined_."

"I'll take that as a yes," Harry says dryly.

"These are brand new, Evans. I'm going to murder those arseholes."

"Do you want me to clean up your face first?"

Draco touches his mouth, lip curling distastefully as he feels the blood covering his face. "That would be appreciated," he mutters. Harry moves his wand in a circular motion in front of Draco's face and silently Wishes the blood away then does the same to his robes. Draco watches him, grey eyes fixed on Harry's face.

"I'm pretty sure we don't learn silent casting until sixth year, Evans," he says quietly when Harry's finished. Harry pockets his wand and smiles cheekily.

"You think I read all those books just for fun?"

"Books don't teach people to cast silently."

"They help. Besides, all the other shit in my life, I think I deserve to have a few extra skills that most people don't."

"Oh? What other skills have you got?"

Harry smirks. "I'm a Slytherin, Draco. I'm not about to spill my secrets that easily."

_You're flirting again._

'Shut up,' he thinks.

He spends the rest of the trip to Hogwarts sat with Draco and gets more than a few odd looks when they disembark the train together and share a carriage to the castle. It's clear that the Weasleys aren't the only ones who hate Draco for his father's actions and think Harry should do as well.

"You're really friends with Malfoy then?"

Harry turns his magical eye to look at Tyler as he runs up beside Harry, not taking his normal eye from the steps leading up to the castle.

"Remarkable how you managed to figure that out, Lyle," Draco drawls from Harry's other side.

"Shove it, Malfoy," Tyler replies without malice. "It's an unexpected plot twist. People are shocked."

"Plot twist?" Harry repeats. "That's what my life is, a bloody story?"

"You've certainly got the drama for it."

"Great," Harry grumbles. "Well I'm not being some story book hero, so I hope there's a good cast of back up characters."

* * *

Hedwig brings him a package at breakfast the next morning and he opens it to find a dozen vials of Draught of Peace with a brief, unsigned note in Snape's handwriting saying that a single mouthful will last an hour.

"That's not your epilepsy potion," Cid remarks, nosily peering across the table. "Something else wrong with you?"

"When is there not?" Harry mutters, pocketing a vial then lifting the box to take the rest back to Slytherin before classes start.

That day he realises for the first time just how bad of an effect the _Daily Prophet's_ claims about his madness have had on people. He knows there's a wide-spread belief that Voldemort isn't back, but he doesn't expect to hear people loudly whispering scornful comments about his claims that Voldemort killed Diggory, or muttering pitying remarks about his mental state. Only the rest of the Slytherins believe Voldemort's return—they have to when several of them are Death Eaters' kids or friends with Death Eaters' kids. Harry half expects to get ostracised by his own house for being Voldemort's sworn enemy, but his friendship with Draco works both ways. He keeps the more anti-Boy Who Lived people from picking fights or making too many unpleasant comments, and Harry stands up for him against anyone looking to blame him for what Lucius did.

He's in the library later that same day when Hermione and Neville come up to him and ask immediately, "Is it true you're friends with Malfoy?"

He turns from the Ancient Runes shelf. "Yes," he says slowly.

"Why?" Hermione asks, but her tone is only curious, not accusatory. Neville looks a touch sceptical, but they haven't turned their backs on him and stalked away, so he thinks that's something.

"We made a connection over the summer."

"Aren't you angry at him for what his father did?" Neville asks sceptically, like he can't imagine Harry not being angry about it.

"Children aren't their parents," Harry replies, a touch coldly. "Draco had nothing to do with what Lucius did to James."

"You really believe that?"

"Yes," Harry replies firmly.

"Alright," Hermione says. "Then we won't doubt you."

"But...?"

She smiles grimly. "But if he hurts you then we'll hex him so much even his mother won't recognise him," she warns, and Harry laughs.

He sits with them until dinner. Neville, he's surprised to learn, has a detention that evening because he spoke out in their afternoon Defence class, insisting that Voldemort is back when Umbridge claims it's a lie. Harry's impressed and Neville confesses he surprised himself by doing it, and now he's regretting it because he's sure to get in trouble from his gran.

"Harry, can we ask you..." Hermione begins hesitantly when it's almost dinner time.

"What?"

"At the end of last year Dumbledore told us that Voldemort was back and he was the one who killed Cedric Diggory, but... well, we were just wondering... what exactly happened?"

He looks between them, both his eyes fixed on them. "Do you think I'm crazy?" he asks. "And... be honest. Please."

"No," they both say firmly.

"You're not," Hermione reiterates. "We believe You-Know-Who's back, we do, and I know the _Daily Prophet_ is lying about you being crazy, but we just wondered what really happened that night."

Harry sighs. "I appreciate that you have faith in me—trust me, I really appreciate it—but I'm not quite ready to talk about that yet."

_Ha! Talk about it? You're not even ready to think about it. You can't ignore it forever, you do realise that, don't you?_

* * *

James paces, hands flexing restlessly at his sides, glaring at the floor. Sam watches.

"It's not like I didn't deserve it."

"Deserve what?"

"His punishments. I did. He wouldn't have done it if I didn't deserve it."

"Why did you deserve it?"

"I disobeyed him. Or I questioned him, or forgot the Mudbloods and Muggles are filth, or touched his wand."

"Muggleborns," Sam corrects gently.

James' scowl deepens but he doesn't argue with her.

"Did Lucius ever punish you when you didn't do any of those things?"

He glances at her, still pacing, then looks away again. "No," he says quickly, but two lengths of the room later he adds, "It wasn't punishment. It was just lessons."

"Lessons in what?"

"Being a proper wizard. I couldn't sympathise with the Muggles and Mudbloods. I—"

"Muggleborns."

"Fine, the _Muggleborns_. They're still filth. It's what he taught me. Muggle is bad, wizard is good. Wizards who sympathise with Muggles are bad and must be taught the error of their ways, but not killed because magical blood is precious."

He stops pacing, hands going still at his side. "Precious," he murmurs, then doesn't say anything for a long time.

"James?"

He glances up, surprised, then frowns. He throws himself into the chair, draws his legs up and stares at the wall. After ten minutes, Sam decides it's enough for the day and leaves him be.

* * *

Harry's first Potions class of the year is on Wednesday and passes unremarkably. He slips into a bathroom beforehand to down a dose of Draught of Peace, which keeps him relaxed enough that his magic doesn't lash out and he can sit through the class without spending the entire time thinking hateful thoughts. It also shuts up the voice in his head, for which he's grateful. The voice has extremely violent ideas on what he can do to Snape and Harry wouldn't be able to concentrate with it muttering spitefully the entire time.

His first Defence class is that day as well. They've all heard about Umbridge's theory only classes so none of them have got their wands out, and she smiles at them in a way Harry assumes is meant to be warm and friendly but just comes off as creepy and condescending. Her first words after introducing herself are to Harry.

"Mr Evans, you are not permitted to wear that eye in school."

Harry tries not to glower at her. "The headmaster allows it."

Umbridge's smile turns cold. "It is a spying device that can be used for cheating and inappropriate behaviour. You will remove it. Now."

_Oh, I don't like her._

'That makes two of us.'

"I have to return to my dorm to remove it," Harry says, barely managing to keep his tone borderline respectful. "That's where my non-magical one is, and I need to put it in its proper jar."

"I'm sure it will be just fine in your pocket."

"My eye has to be stored in the correct optical solution to ensure it remains clean. In my pocket it can get dirty. If it gets dirty, it can cause an infection, which can damage the nerves, which can cause anything from a seizure to permanent brain damage. My healer made it perfectly clear that proper eye care is of the utmost importance to my already precarious health; if you don't believe me, you can check with Madam Pomfrey. With all due respect, professor, either permit me to return to my dorm to change it, or I will not remove my eye."

Umbridge stares at him, a vein twitching in her jaw, and Harry knows she's weighing her options. If she lets him keep wearing it then it suggests she approves, but if she makes him change it then he gets to leave the class and it means bending to the whims of a student. Either way, it's a minor win for him.

"You will change it immediately after class," she declares eventually. "You will not be permitted to wear it during school hours from now on. Headmaster Dumbledore has been far too lax in his management of this school; no student should be permitted to be in possession of such an object."

_An object? That's our bodily parts she's talking about. You should channel some of that anger from Snape onto her. Blow up that ugly cardigan. She deserves it._

She stalks back to the front of the classroom and Harry glares at her back, having to restrain himself from literally burning a hole in her back with his gaze.

He thought no class could be more boring than History of Magic, but _Defensive Magical Theory_ is quite possibly the dullest book Harry's ever had the misfortune of reading, and within fifteen minutes he's officially decided Umbridge is a worse Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher than Lockhart. Spending an hour forced to sit in utter silence and trying to focus on the book is enough to drive even him into a dull stupor. He's immensely glad that he bought other Defence books in Diagon Alley and has every intention of charming one of them to look like _Defensive Magical Theory_ so he can actually learn something useful in his classes.

He goes to McGonagall that afternoon, telling her what Umbridge said and asking if she can really make him stop wearing his magical eye. McGonagall says they need to tread carefully around Dolores Umbridge, that he really doesn't need to use the magical eye—at the very least, certainly not all the time—and mentions that issues such as these are normally taken to a student's Head of House.

"Or to the Deputy Headmistress," Harry says a little coldly. He knows she knows about Snape being his father and he expected her to understand his feelings towards the man. She was sympathetic about his hatred of Snape before, after all.

"The Deputy Headmistress has enough to deal with right now."

Harry nods stiffly. "Duly noted, professor. I'm sorry to bother you."

The next time he sees Umbridge, she has an unbearably smug smirk on her face. Harry looks back at her with two green eyes, his expression blank, and let's his magical blue one swivel in the socket, hidden behind a glamour.

The following Monday, the Daily Prophet runs an article declaring Umbridge the Hogwarts High Inquisitor, giving her the power to inspect classes and teachers. No one mistakes it for a good thing. The Slytherins may have the sense not to trash talk Umbridge where they can be heard, but in the safety of their own common room, in pairs and small groups, they mutter and complain about the non-practical classes. The fifth and seventh years are especially unhappy; no one wants to fail their exams.

* * *

"There were other times," James mutters.

"Other times?"

"When he... hurt me even if I didn't do anything wrong. Sometimes he was just angry at other things and he took it out on me."

"That's not very fair."

James doesn't say anything for a while, but Sam can tell he's thinking it over and she keeps quiet.

"He said it was his right," he says eventually. "He's my Master so he can do what he likes."

"Do you think Lucius was right?"

"He's always right," he answers dully. "That's why he's Master and I'm not."


	40. Chapter 40

"Don't take offence," Draco drawls, slouching onto the sofa beside Harry one evening, "but you look odd with two green eyes."

Harry looks over from his book. "Do I?"

Draco nods, stretching his legs out towards the fire and throwing his arms along the back of the sofa. Harry feels his hand brush against the back of his head. "I got used to you wearing that crazy blue one. It's weird seeing you without it."

Harry just smiles and shrugs. He doesn't say anything when the hand that landed behind his head starts idly playing with his hair.

"They're talking about us, aren't they?"

"Who?"

Harry nods his head towards the small group off to the far side of the common room who keep glancing their way. Draco looks over, examining the group. Pansy Parkinson and Theo Nott are among them, with a couple of sixth and seventh years, and one beady-eyed second year. All of them, Harry knows, have Death Eater connections, either through their parents or extended family.

"Probably," Draco says, looking away. "Does it bother you?"

"I'm getting used to people talking about me. Don't like it, but I'm getting used to it." He watches them with his magical eye while pretending to read more of his book. "Do they disapprove of you being friends with me?"

Draco raises an eyebrow at him and Harry hurriedly clarifies, "I just mean, y'know, with me being the Boy Who Lived and you..."

"Being son of the Dark Lord's newest favourite Death Eater?"

Harry flushes and fixes his gaze on the book, not answering.

"They think it's a phase. The imprisonment of my father and the knowledge of what he did has left me a confused young man who gravitates towards the child of the man my father wronged in a vain attempt to understand what he did and find peace with my now fatherless existence. In connection, your insanity makes your position as the Boy Who Lived a shade less important in the grand scheme of things and therefore my attraction to you is not quite as socially unacceptable as it might be, albeit the insanity itself is a negative mark against you. However, given time, my attraction to you will surely fade, at which point I will rejoin the ranks of Slytherin's most elite and bring with me some inside information on you."

Harry stares at him. Draco smiles. His fingers are still playing with Harry's hair. "Yes," he says, "they disapprove, but for now they'll do nothing. Regardless, it's none of their concern and I, for one, will not be bothered by the lack of approval from people several rungs below me on the social ladder. My father might be in jail but I'm still the richest and, more importantly, most handsome person in the house."

"Some people might argue with that," Harry says, lips quirking.

_Must we do this again? I'm starting to think you actually fancy the boy._

"Do you?"

Harry shrugs. "Tyler's good looking."

"He's pretty, not handsome."

"Still good looking."

"But not more so than me."

"It's a tough pick."

"It is not. I'm clearly the obvious choice."

Harry just chuckles.

_You don't even deny it! I swear to Merlin, if your little crush interferes with studying and other equally important things I'll sing annoying Christmas songs to keep you awake at nights._

* * *

He gets a note from Hermione at breakfast one Saturday a couple of weeks after the start of term, asking him to meet her 'where you learnt to swim'. She doesn't sign it and he frowns at her secretive nature, wondering what she wants. He finishes his breakfast, excuses himself from Tyler and Cid, and heads up to the seventh floor.

He gets there to find the Room of Requirement already materialised into a room lined with bookcases. Almost all the books focus on defensive magic and the shelves at the far end hold Sneakoscopes, Secrecy Sensors, and other devices used to warn of approaching enemies. Hermione sits on a cushion on the floor, face buried in a book, and Neville peers at the Secrecy Sensors.

"What's this about?" Harry asks, dropping onto a cushion beside Hermione. She puts her book aside and Neville comes over to join them. Harry looks between them, suddenly suspicious. "Why do I think I'm not going to like what you have to say?"

_Oh, look at you being a clever little boy._

"We had an idea," Hermione begins.

"Hermione did, really," Neville says, not in the manner of trying to give credit where it's due, but rather giving Harry the impression Neville wants him to know who's really behind this.

"Oh, alright, _I_ had an idea that, well... we're not getting a proper Defence education from Umbridge."

Harry snorts. "You can say that again."

"And I was thinking we need to do something about it."

"Like what?"

"I thought, maybe, we need a better teacher. A proper teacher."

"Good luck with that. Umbridge is Ministry appointed; Fudge himself is making sure she stays."

Neville and Hermione exchange glances.

"You're not talking about a replacement," Harry realises. "You're thinking of secret Defence lessons. From who?"

"Well... you."

_That's a terrible idea_ , the voice says, and Harry echoes the sentiment.

"Why?"

"How about the fact that I'm that crazy little Slytherin fourth year who tells lies and speaks to snakes? No one would want to take lessons from me."

"But you're incredible at Defence—you're incredible at everything," Neville says. "That's more important than what house you're from or what the papers say about you."

"You underestimating how much hostility the rest of the school has for me and Slytherin house. And my having power doesn't make me a good teacher. In fact it makes me completely unsuited to being a teacher."

"Why? You know how to do everything we need to learn and we're not getting it from Umbridge, so why not you?"

A butterfly appears, fluttering in the air between the three of them. "That's why. I'm not suited to teaching people when my magic is nothing like anyone else's."

"But you can still do loads of spells," Hermione persists as the butterfly vanishes. "You looked up plenty of jinxes and hexes for the third task, didn't you?"

"Yeah, but that's not—you guys don't get it. Look." He grabs the book Hermione was reading, _Jinxes for the Jinxed_ , and holds it out. "Pick a spell from that, one that's got specific wand movements, and tell me the incantation only and whether I should cast it on something, someone, or just randomly."

Hermione glances at Neville, who shrugs, and does as he suggests, flipping the book open to a random page. " _Duro_. Cast it on an object."

Harry draws his wand, turns it on the bookshelf nearest, and repeats the incantation. The bookshelf turns to stone, making Neville jump. Harry's horrified and hurriedly turns it back, grabbing one of the books just to check it hasn't been damaged, but it's fine. Only then does he turn to Hermione and say, "Is that what it's supposed to do?"

She nods.

"But with proper wand movements?"

"An angled up-down flick, and the pronunciation should be harder."

"Right, and watch this." He points his wand at the bookshelf again, moves his wand in a perfect swish-and-flick, and says clearly, " _Wingardium Leviosa!_ " and the bookshelf turns to stone once more, earning startled noises from his friend.

"This is what I mean," Harry says after turning the bookshelf back to normal. "I can do things with half-arsed spell casting and I can do perfect spells and get different results if I want. I can't teach people to do spells properly when I hardly do them properly myself. If you guys taught it, I'm perfectly willing to help out and back you up, but I can't be the one to do it."

_Good little spell though_ , the voice remarks later when he's walking back to Slytherin. _I wonder what would happen if you used it on a living thing._

"Probably kill them," Harry mutters.

_You say that like it's a bad thing_.

"Of course it's a bad thing."

_Is it? It'd be no great loss if Umbridge died. Nor your daddy, for that matter... no arguments?_

Harry scowls. "I'm not killing anyone."

"Eep!"

He spins and a first year Ravenclaw stares at him, expression fearful.

_Oops_.

"I didn't—" he begins, but they whirl and run off before he can explain. "Great," he mutters, turning and carrying on his way. "Just what I need."

_You shouldn't talk to yourself. People might think you're crazy._

"Shut up," he snarls as it laughs at him.

* * *

"My lord?"

Voldemort doesn't move from his seat even to glance at the Assistant. "What do you want?"

"I merely came to offer my assistance."

"With?"

The Assistant steps a little further into the dark living room. "You're clearly troubled, my lord. I simply wished to remind you that I am here for whatever you need."

Voldemort turns his head to let narrowed red eyes settle on the Assistant. "If you are making sexual advances on me, Assistant, I strongly advise you stop before you find yourself on the rack again."

The Assistant smiles. "No, my lord. You've made it _painfully_ clear where you stand on that. But if there is something which the others are proving incapable of, I'm more than willing to... take up the slack, so to speak."

Voldemort considers him for a moment, then says, "Tell me, in your original timeline did my counterpart ever learn the full prophecy?"

"If he did, he certainly never told me."

"Did you ever seek it yourself?"

"I never knew about it. No one ever told me in my original timeline; I only learnt about it after I got stuck in the time loop."

"And you never sought to hear it?"

The Assistant shrugs. "It's not about me anymore."

"You're a liar, Harry Snape."

The Assistant scowls. He's asked not to be addressed by his true name; he doesn't like it, and he doesn't want Pettigrew overhearing. At the Assistant's request, Pettigrew was memory charmed to forget his identity and the rest of the Death Eaters kept in the dark, so only Voldemort knows.

"The prophecy is not about me, my lord. That is the whole truth."

"Oh, that I know. But you expect me to believe you still never sought to know what it said, in all your years?"

"I tried," the Assistant admits. "But just as Cedric Diggory always dies, I always fail to retrieve the prophecy. I've learnt there's little use questioning Lady Fate's whims, nor fighting them."

"You believe in fate?"

"You don't, even when you put so much stock in a prophecy? One made, I might add, by a less than reputable Seer."

"I have it on good authority that the prophecy is genuine."

The Assistant gives a brief bow. "Then I shan't be the one to question it. Might I be excused?"

"Take twenty-four hours," Voldemort says and the Assistant frowns, confused. "Satisfy your baser urges, Assistant, but return by midnight tomorrow or suffer for it."

The Assistant grins. "Absolutely, my lord. Your grace is _much_ appreciated."

He finds a brothel, after stealing some money from a Muggle bank. He hasn't had sex in so long that he has no inclination to waste time wooing a single woman when he can have three pleasure him for as long as he pays for it.

* * *

Defence classes are quickly becoming unbearable. Even with a good book disguised as _Defensive Magical Theory_ Harry finds them tedious. The bored sighs and mutters from his classmates are distracting enough that even the voice, normally silent when he's reading, spends entire lessons muttering violent suggestions on how to shut up his classmates or deal with Umbridge.

* * *

"I miss Lily."

Sam's surprised at the quiet words, but glad. It's the first time James has mentioned his dead wife in a positive manner since he'd arrived.

"You won't tell him, will you?" he quickly adds.

"Everything you say to me stays between us. I won't tell anyone."

He nods, staring at his knees. "He said she deserved to die because she was Muggleborn, and that I should be glad the Dark Lord freed me from her. But I'm not. I miss her." James picks at a thread on his trousers. "I lied and told him I was glad she was dead."

"It's not wrong to miss her, James. You loved her."

"It's wrong to lie to Master."

"What would Lucius have done if you didn't lie?"

James shrugs, not looking at her. Sam repeats the question.

"Punished me," he admits somewhat reluctantly.

"So you lied to stop Lucius from hurting you. You were protecting yourself."

"I shouldn't have lied."

"If he was here now, would you tell him you miss Lily?"

"No," he says, barely audible.

"Why not?"

"Because. He'd punish me and I don't..."

"You don't what?"

"I don't want him to. I don't like it."

* * *

Harry still dreams of a long corridor ending in a locked door and every morning he wakes up frustrated, his scar burning. It makes him snappish and his roommates have already learnt not to speak much to him in the mornings anymore. It doesn't help his mood, but he knows it's his own fault that they're doing it, which only makes him feel worse.

He gets a letter from Kirith saying he's booked in for a check up on the last Saturday of September. He goes alone, flooing from the Hospital Wing straight to Saint Mungo's, and Kirith is surprised.

"Where's Professor Snape today?"

"I'm fifteen," Harry says with a scowl. "I don't need babysitting anymore."

"Of course," Kirith says smoothly. "In you come then, let's take a look at your head."

Once he's been through the usual check, Kirith inspects his seizure diary.

"You've been having quite a lot of focal seizures recently."

"I guess. It's been a stressful few months."

"Hmm, that it has. I'm going to up the dose on your potion though and see if that helps at all, and you should see about trying to reduce your stress levels. Are you still averse to seeing a psychiatrist?"

"Yes."

"Alright, but like I said, try and find some way to reduce your stress. Perhaps try meditating or finding a similar relaxing activity."

"I think meditation makes them happen more."

Kirith frowns and Harry explains how his meditation when trying to become an Animagus had seemed to increase his seizures.

"So you were attempting to become an Animagus," Kirith says with a hint of disapproval. "I did suspect as much after the incident with the Spirit Trance Potion."

"It's not illegal as long as I register," Harry mutters.

"No, but it's difficult magic. Are you still trying?"

Harry shakes his head. "After the potion, I kinda figured it wasn't going to happen so I gave up."

"You might try again in a few years when you're of age, but with regards to meditation: you would have been attempting to reach a Spirit Trance for the Animagus transformation. If you just meditate normally—no magic involved—it shouldn't trigger any more seizures."

Harry nods, then asks, "Do you think—I know it's not really your area—but I still have a lot of magical outbursts. Do you think meditation will help with that?"

"Possibly," Kirith says slowly. "As you said, it's not my area, but magical outbursts are related to stress and emotional trouble, so meditating to relieve those issues will certainly help reduce outbursts."

When he gets back to school it occurs to him that the Draught of Peace would help his stress, but realises he probably shouldn't take it all the time. He does start taking it before his Defence lessons though. The voice is furious.

_I don't like it,_ it tells him. _It dulls me. I'd really rather you just dealt with your issues._

"Does that include you?" he asks spitefully, then downs a mouthful before it can respond. It makes the lessons a whole lot less tedious. He can even ignore the little noises from his classmates and focus on his reading, so all in all he thinks it's an excellent idea.

He starts meditating before bed each night, letting his mind clear of thoughts about homework, classes, Voldemort, and anything else that bothers him. He thinks it'll take more than a few nights to really reduce his stress levels, but he notices immediately that it makes falling asleep a lot easier.

Hermione and Neville tell him they intend to go through with secret Defence lessons. They've already contacted a few people with plans to meet in the Hog's Head pub on the first Hogsmeade weekend, on the fifth of October, and Harry's welcome to join them and bring Cid and Tyler, but not Draco, they say, and Harry doesn't argue; they might be friends but Draco has other less pleasant friends and the last thing they need is Umbridge getting word of their little Defence club.

* * *

The Assistant enters the living room at Voldemort's beckon and doesn't even get chance to bow before the Dark Lord starts talking.

"How likely is it that Harry Evans is unaware of the prophecy's existence?"

"Extremely," the Assistant answer immediately. "Albus does like to keep his secrets even at the best of times, and their relationship is tenuous at best, from what I've seen. It seems unlikely the old man told Harry about the prophecy."

"I need you to change that."

"I don't understand, my lord."

"Tell Evans of the prophecy. You've helped him before; he will not suspect you if you do so again."

* * *

The Hog's Head is dark and dingy, but extremely full when Harry, Cid, Tyler, and Alex arrive.

"I thought you said it'd just be a couple of people," Tyler mutters to Harry.

"Hermione said it would be," Harry mutters back, and the slightly guilty expression on her face tells Harry that she was completely aware that it was more than 'a couple of people'. He leaves his friends to join the crowd getting drinks and goes over to where Hermione and Neville sit with Luna Lovegood and Ginny Weasley.

"Hi, Harry," Hermione greets cheerfully.

"I thought we were trying to keep this on the down low," Harry says, dropping into a seat beside her.

"That's why we're here instead of the Three Broomsticks, but the idea was quite popular. Besides," she adds a touch defensively, "we're the one's running it. You didn't want to, remember?"

"Yeah, yeah," he grumbles, leaning back in his seat. "I just don't want any of us getting in trouble."

"We'll be fine."

He swivels his magical eye around to look at the other non-student patrons at the pub. Two wizards with thick Yorkshire accents are talking over beers, shooting the students disgruntled looks from under their hoods but otherwise not a bother. A man in dirty grey bandages with a brutalised face underneath sits at the bar, apparently completely ignorant to the bustle of activity. But the woman sat in the corner, hidden behind a black veil hanging all the way to her toes, isn't a woman at all, but Mundungus Fletcher, who Harry recognises from Grimmauld Place as a member of the Order of the Phoenix. As the rest of the students take chairs around Hermione and Neville, Harry silently Wishes for their voices to sound like only murmurs no matter how hard Mundungus tries to listen.

_So does Dung normally dress up as a woman or is he spying on us for the Order?_ the voice murmurs. _It certainly wouldn't surprise me if he was..._

Once everyone is seated, Hermione stands up from her position next to Neville. "Er, well—hi." She clears her throat, hands twisting nervously in front of her. "So, um, you all know why we're here. Neville and I—"

"Hang on," Ron Weasley interrupts loudly. "What are _they_ doing here?"

Heads swivel. Ron is pointing at Harry, Cid, and Tyler and his distrustful expression is mirrored by several others in the room.

"Saw this coming," Cid mutters. "Fucking Gryffindors."

"We're here for the same reason you are, Weasley," Harry retorts. "Because Umbridge is the worst teacher we've ever had and some of us would actually like to learn how to defend ourselves if we ever come face to face with a Death Eater."

"I thought this was about passing our OWLs," says Michael Corner, a fifth year Ravenclaw.

"It is," Hermione says quickly, "but it's about more than _just_ that. We need to learn how to defend ourselves because... because..." She takes a deep breath and finishes, "Because Lord Voldemort is back."

The expected ripple of shudders, small shrieks, and gasps run through the crowd at that.

"Where's the proof You Know Who's back?" asks Zacharias Smith, a Hufflepuff fifth year.

"Dumbledore believes it—" Hermione begins, only to be interrupted.

"Dumbledore believes _him,_ " Smith says, nodding at Harry. "I think we've got a right to know what makes him think You Know Who's back."

_You ready to think about it yet?_ the voice asks snidely. _They're all looking for an entertaining story about how Diggory died and you got away. Now that I think about it, we should come up with one. Make you out to be the big hero that night. I'm sure we can make up something convincing._

"Look, that's really not what this meeting's supposed to be about," Hermione says, and Harry shakes his head, trying to ignore the voice and wishing he'd taken a dose of Draught of Peace before he came out.

"It's fine," Harry says to Hermione, then to Smith, "Dumbledore told the whole school what happened last year, and if you didn't believe him, you don't believe me. I'm not wasting an afternoon trying to convince anyone."

"All Dumbledore told us last year was that Cedric Diggory got killed by You-Know-Who and that you brought Diggory's body back to Hogwarts. He didn't give us details, he didn't tell us exactly how Diggory got murdered, I think we'd all like to know—"

"You want to know what it looks like when someone gets murdered?" Harry interrupts angrily. "Is that what you really want? To know what the expression on Diggory's face was, to know how Voldemort looked when he did it, to know how it feels to watch someone _die_? You're a Hufflepuff, you must have known Diggory pretty well. Is your respect for him so low that his death is nothing more than some story you want to hear from the kid everyone calls crazy?"

Several people look guilty at that, looking away when he flicks his gaze over them. Smith says nothing.

"Diggory was a decent guy. He was one of the few non-Slytherins not to treat me like shit last year when I got forced into joining that stupid tournament. I'm not degrading what happened to him by treating it like some bit out of a thriller novel. If that's all you came here for, you can bugger off. If not, shut up and listen to what Hermione's got to say."


	41. Chapter 41

"That went well."

Harry raises his eyebrows at Hermione, who flushes a little.

"Well, it didn't go terribly. They all decided to join," she points out.

"Yeah, well, that's the last time I'm listening to one of your crazy ideas," he says, getting to his feet. Most of the other students have filed out after signing their name to the piece of parchment. Harry's already sent Cid, Tyler, and Alex on their way. "You know if Umbridge finds out, we're properly good and fucked, right? Sirius told me the reason we're having such crappy lessons is because Minister Fudge reckons Dumbledore's trying to create an army to take over the Ministry, so they're making sure we don't know anything good."

"But that's ridiculous. Why would anyone think that?"

Harry can only shrug.

He bumps into someone just as he's leaving and looks up to apologise, but his words catch in his throat when his eyes land on a familiar face topped with blond hair, body cloaked in dark green.

_Well now, there's an unexpected face._

"Hello, Harry," the Assistant greets with a smile. "Join me for a drink?"

"Is that the Assistant?" Hermione asks in a whisper when Harry goes over to tell her and Neville they can leave without him.

"Yeah."

She looks him over, sat at the bar with his back to the room, a shot glass of some clear liquid already in front of him. "What's he doing here?"

"I don't know but it can't be good. He only ever shows up when something bad's happening."

"Do you want us to stay?" Neville asks, clearly suspicious. Harry considers it, but shakes his head.

"I'll be fine. He's helped me before. I'll see you later."

_'He's helped me before'? Are you trying to jinx us?_

"What are you doing here?" Harry asks the Assistant, slipping onto the stool beside him.

"Oh, you know me. I show up at opportune moments with titbits of information that I really shouldn't know but choose to divulge anyway."

"So... you're here to give me another bit of information. Voldemort breaking into the school to steal another priceless magical artefact again?"

The Assistant chuckles. "No, nothing so drastic, although what I have to say is related to him... and you."

"What is it?"

The Assistant downs his shot and signals the barman for another before he speaks. When he does, his voice is quiet. "You ever wondered why Voldemort tried to kill you as a baby?"

Harry's mouth goes dry. The voice is silent and Harry gets the impression it's listening as intently to the Assistant as Harry is. "Yes," Harry says, mouth so dry it comes out as little more than a whisper. He clears his throat. "Of course I have."

"So if I said I had the answer, you'd want to know?"

"Do you?"

The Assistant smiles and downs his second shot.

* * *

"Evans. Evans? _Harry!_ "

A hand lands on his shoulder and he jumps, then turns to look at Draco. "Sorry, did you want something?"

"You know we have to be back at the castle in fifteen minutes."

Harry looks back down the road leading out of Hogsmeade and says nothing.

"You thinking of running away again?"

Harry says nothing for so long that Draco thinks he won't answer, but eventually he asks quietly, "If you had the chance to find out something that might change your life forever, would you take it?"

"That would depend."

Harry looks at him. "On what?"

"Whether it'd change my life for the better."

Harry looks at him for a long moment then looks back down the road briefly before turning away. "We should get back to the castle before the prefect gets in trouble for breaking the rules."

"Hey." Draco grabs his arm, stopping him and moving to stand in front of him, mouth turned down as he looks at Harry. "Are you okay?"

Harry can't answer.

_Why are we not going now? The answer to a question you've had for years is finally within reach. We should be in the Ministry retrieving that prophecy, not returning to the castle. I swear to Merlin, if you're passing up a chance to retrieve the prophecy just so you can spend time with Malfoy, you and me are going to have a major falling out._

He catches Tyler alone in their dorm the next morning. He's hardly slept but he doesn't feel tired.

"Hey, Tyler, can I ask you about the Department of Mysteries?"

"What about it?" Tyler asks without looking up from his comic.

"Anything really. Do you know what's down there?"

"Nope. Marcus never told me anything about it. Why?"

"I just... I heard the fifth years talking about how they're getting career advice this year and it got me thinking about what I want to do. I just wondered what it's like working in the Department of Mysteries."

"You can always write to Marcus if you want, but he probably won't tell you much. I think the D.O.M. is one of those departments you get shifted to after you've been working in the Ministry for a while. Or like, you get approached by some secret agent person who knows a tonne of stuff about you that no one else does and the next thing you know you're toting around secret magical weapons and living a pretend life." He pauses, face thoughtful. "That'd be pretty cool, actually. I wonder if they do that."

On Monday a notice goes up in the Slytherin common room with a new Educational Degree from Umbridge, declaring that all Student Organizations and groups were being disbanded and could only be reformed with Umbridge's permission.

"Well, I guess that throws a spanner in the whole secret defence group," Tyler mutters as he, Cid, and Harry head out. "Unless you reckon Hermione and Neville are still running it? Harry?"

Harry looks up as though surprised to see him. "Sorry?"

"The Defence group."

"What about it?"

Tyler shakes his head. "Nevermind. I suppose you don't know any more than us."

Cid's frowning and he nudges Harry. "What's up with you? You've been weird and distant all weekend."

"Just thinking."

"About?"

"Malfoy?" Tyler suggests with a smirk. "I heard you came back from Hogsmeade with him. You two more than just friends by any chance?"

"No," he says simply without even an scowl or a blush to suggest he's annoyed or lying. Tyler looks at Cid, who shrugs, and they carry on to the Great Hall in silence.

Alex comes over from the Hufflepuff table to tell them that Ginny Weasley told him Hermione and Neville are still going through with the Defence group. Harry barely notices.

He has a seizure in Ancient Runes class that morning, realising only afterwards that he's forgotten to take his potion that morning. He insists he's fine and carries on with classes, but he has another just as he's leaving the Great Hall at lunch.

 _We should just go and get it_ , the voice says later when he's lying in a bed in the Hospital Wing _. This stress is clearly bad for you. Just go get it and then we can relax again._

'I don't even know where the Department of Mysteries is.'

_Yes, you do. We were near there this summer. Lucius' trial, remember? Courtroom ten was on the ninth floor, which the announcer in the lift said was also the D.O.M. floor. You might not have been paying attention but I certainly was; there was a door at the end of that corridor, past where we went to get to the courtroom. I'm willing to bet your soul that that's where it is. All we need is a tracking arrow and we'll have that prophecy in a flash._

* * *

Snape knows immediately what wakes him late that night. The emerald pendant, which in his sleep has ended up nestled in the hollow of his throat, has gone from almost uncomfortably warm to icy cold in an instant and the shock of it wakes him with a gasp. He throws back the covers, grabbing the robe he tossed over the back of his chair earlier and pulling it on as he hurries out of his quarters.

He snarls the password to Dumbledore's office as soon as the gargoyle guarding it is in sight and stalks onto the revolving staircase, taking the steps two at a time instead of waiting for it to take him up. He enters the office without knocking and moves past the desk to the door leading to Dumbledore's quarters, which opens just as he lifts a fist to knock.

"What's happened?" Dumbledore asks, tone serious.

"Harry's gone."

* * *

The Ministry is almost completely empty. A security guard comes up to Harry as the telephone box descends into the Atrium, standing in the way to stop Harry stepping out.

"No visitors allowed after five o'clock. What are you doing here anyway, kiddo?"

"Go to sleep," Harry orders, and the man slumps to the floor. Harry steps over him, moving quickly down the hall and past the gauche fountain, through the golden grille and towards the elevators. He feels oddly calm as he waits for one to arrive and the voice is utterly silent as he steps inside, pressing the button for the ninth floor and riding down.

As he steps out of the lift and looks down the empty corridor towards the black door at the end, he realises that it's the same door he's been dreaming about for the past couple of months, the one that leaves him so frustrated.

Molly Weasley is there, too. She's hidden under an Invisibility Cloak, but his magical eye picks her up immediately. She's slumped on the floor just down the turning leading to courtroom ten. He turns himself invisible and silently moves forward. He has no idea what she might be doing there, but her presence, and especially her unconsciousness, can't be good. He hesitates. She was pleasant to him during his stay at Grimmauld Place and he knows he should probably do something, but if he tries to help her, he'll lose his chance to get the prophecy.

He leaves her, ignoring the guilty stab in his gut as he goes to the door, which opens at a touch of his fingers. Beyond is a circular room with a dozen more black doors, interspersed with flickering torches that burn blue. As soon as he shuts the door behind him, the walls spin and all he sees is blue streaks until the walls stop, leaving him with no idea which way he needs to go or even where he came from. He can't see through any of the doors.

He reaches into his pocket and removes the tracking arrow he'd made. It reads _Prophecy about Harry Potter_ and he's included a distance marker, but when he orders it to direct him, it spins wildly in his hand and the numbers refuse to settle, the digits changing rapidly.

_It looks like we're doing this the old fashioned way. Ready for a bit of footwork?_

He shoves the arrow back in his pocket, looks around, and picks a door at random. He opens it and finds himself looking back into the corridor.

 _Wait!_ the voice cries as he goes to shut it. _Mark it so we know which one we've tried._

He conjures a piece of chalk and draws a large X on the door then closes it.

He realises five minutes later, when he's lying on the floor feeling weak and sleepy and with vomit in his mouth, that the flash of the blue torches when the room spins acts similarly to strobe lights and that it might have been a good idea to close his eyes. He doesn't move for a few moments and wonders if maybe he should give up and go back to Hogwarts, but the voice screams at him so loudly he flinches.

_We've come too close to give up now. Pick yourself up, you pathetic child, and carry on. We can rest when we've got the prophecy._

The next door he opens leads into long rectangular room, empty except for a few desks and, in the very middle of the room, an enormous glass tank of deep-green water, big enough for six people to swim in, which contains a number of pearly white objects that drift around lazily in the liquid. When he moves closer, he realises the objects are brains.

_Curious. What on earth are they doing with brains?_

Harry has no idea, nor does he care. He moves on to one of the other doors in the room, opening it and finding himself in a small office. He backs out, goes to another, but that opens into an office as well. He checks all the doors, and only two lead to other places—the door he came through, and another which leads into a large rectangular room with a sunken pit twenty feet below the door. Levelled stone benches lead down to a raised dais at the bottom, upon which stands an archway, ancient and crumbling, but holding a thin black veil that flutters slightly in an unfelt wind.

He scans the room with his magical eye but there's no one else there. He moves slowly down the benches to the dais, approaching it cautiously. He swears he can hear voices coming from the archway.

"Is it in there?"

 _I don't know,_ the voice murmurs. _But what does it say for your sanity that the voice in your head is hearing voices?_

"I hear them too. Do you think..." he moves around the archway, looking at it from all sides. "Do you think there's people in there?"

_If there are, we ought to avoid it._

"Yeah," Harry agrees, but he doesn't move.

* * *

A burst of flames make both Padfoot and Moony leap up, hackles rising, a growl in their throats as they turn towards the source, then a haunting cry sounds through the room and both canines tremble, whining softly as their surprise eases. Moony flattens himself to the floor, head on his paws, tail tucked against him, but Padfoot takes a few steps away and transforms into Sirius, staring at the phoenix perched on the headboard of the bed. Lupin uses the Wolfsbane Potion even when Harry isn't there, so Sirius doesn't worry about Moony attacking him. It's more effective if used every full moon instead of just occasionally.

"Fawkes?"

He gives another trill and drops an emerald pendant and a small scroll of parchment onto the pillows. Sirius picks them up, hastily unrolling the scroll, his face turning pale as he reads the message inside.

"I'll find him," he says to Fawkes, who vanishes in another burst of fire. Moony barks, watching Sirius hurry to the dresser and pull out James' Invisibility Cloak. "It's Harry, he's left the school. They think he might have gone to the Ministry."

Moony whines. Sirius bundles the cloak up, pulls the emerald pendant over his head, then goes over and quickly scratches the wolf behind the ears. "I'll find him, Moony."

* * *

 _Come on,_ the voice says. _We need to find the prophecy._

Harry tears his gaze away from the veil and keeps even his magical eye off it as he turns and climbs back up the stone dais towards a door opposite the one he came in.

_This is it!_

The voice is right. The Assistant said the prophecies come in the form of glass orbs and he now finds himself in a tall, cathedral-like room filled with shelves holding thousands of them.

 _Row ninety-seven, he said. Come on, get moving, we're so close_.

He checks the number on the end of the row nearest to him—46—checks the ones on either side then starts running along, counting them as he passes, slowing only as he reaches the nineties. When he finds 97, his prophecy is a third of the way down, a dusty glass ball with a yellowish label beneath it that reads:

_S.P.T. to A.P.W.B.D._

_Dark Lord_

_and (?) Harry Potter_

He picks it up. It's not cold like he expects, but pleasantly warm in his grip. He's holds it in both hands as he turns away, but a voice in the darkness makes him look up.

"I'm going to need that now."

The Assistant steps out of the shadows. He's not smiling and Harry steps back, clutching the prophecy tighter.

"What are you doing here?"

"The same thing you are. I need the prophecy, and drop the invisibility. I've told you before it's rude to talk to people like that."

Harry doesn't. "For what? It's not about you. It's mine."

"My reasons are my own. Hand it over, Harry. That's all I'm asking."

"You're working for him." His magical eye swivels, focusing on the Assistant's left arm, but he can't see through the Assistant's cloak. "You're a Death Eater, aren't you?"

"I'm just here for the prophecy, Harry."

He holds out his hand and the prophecy leaps from Harry's hands and floats across the space between them, slipping away from Harry's fingers when he tries to grab it.

"No!"

 _Get in our trunk!_ the voice yells, and the prophecy vanishes just before it drops into the Assistant's hand.

The Assistant stares at his hand then lifts his gaze to where Harry stands. "Where the fuck did it go? What have you done with it, Harry? Show yourself!"

"Fuck you. I trusted you. I thought you were a good guy."

"I am a good guy. I saved your life, didn't I?"

"And now you're working for the man who wants to kill me!"

Instead of responding the Assistant flicks his hand and Harry cries out as he suddenly lifts into the air, his arms forced out on either side like he's been tied to an invisible cross. The Assistant stalks forward, rifling through Harry's pockets then patting his hands along his sides, front, and back. When he doesn't find the prophecy he lifts his hand and presses it to Harry's head, and Harry feels a presence inside his mind, like a snake slithering through his thoughts. He drops his invisibility, and only afterwards wonders why, and the image of his trunk at Hogwarts rises unbidden to the front of his mind before the voice snarls _Get out!_ and the presence vanishes. The Assistant takes his hand away and steps back, looking at Harry curiously.

 _Move it. He won't ask again. Move it. Now,_ the voice orders and Harry obeys.

"That is interesting," the Assistant murmurs. "And impressive. You do realise that the amount of protections on this room should make it impossible for anyone to remove something from it by magic? Even I'd have some trouble with it and I'm a magical genius."

"I do the impossible a lot," Harry replies. "You're not getting that prophecy."

"We'll see," the Assistant replies. "But just... let me look at you a minute."

He closes his eyes and Harry frowns, confused, but then the Assistant opens his eyes and instead of blue, they're the same bright green as Harry's real one and glowing unnaturally, giving off a light all of their own. Harry's own eyes go wide at the sight, and the Assistant's mouth drops open slightly.

"Oh _wow_. Look at you!" He laughs delightedly, eery eyes staring at Harry's chest. "Good Merlin, you're the bloody Amazon river. That's incredible. Hey, tell me what you asked for when you made your deal with Crowley."

Harry's blood runs cold. "How do you know—"

_He's you!_

"You know me," the Assistant says, guessing what Harry had been about to ask and unaware of Harry's sudden realisation. "I know lots of things I shouldn't. Come on, tell me exactly what you said and I'll—"

"You're me," Harry says, and makes a Wish. He drops to the floor, staggering a little as he lands, then straightens up as the Assistant snaps his mouth shut.

"Smart boy," he says quietly and Harry's jaw drops. He was only echoing the voice, trying to distract the Assistant. "I'm going to have to make you forget that for the moment, though."

"Wait, you're actually—"

 _Knock him out and run, you idiot!_ the voice yells at him, but the Assistant waves his hand and pressure wraps around Harry's chest and when he tries to make a Wish, nothing happens. He darts forward, attempting to run past the man, but the Assistant grabs him, one arm wrapping around his torso, the other hand pressing to his head.

"Sorry about this, Harry, but I've got secrets to keep."

The snake like presence slithers into his head again. Harry struggles, trying to squirm out of the Assistant's grip and shaking his head violently. It feels like there's a fight happening inside his mind, the snake darting around while bursts of lightning lash down at it, but the snake is surprisingly capable of avoiding them, and then the image of the prophecy floats unbidden to the forefront of his mind, tucked under his pillow at home.

 _No!_ the voice yells. _You're not having it!_

"Sneaky bastard," the Assistant mutters. "Now forget about me."

The snake in Harry's head flings itself forwards, jaws opening wide, and lightning crashes all through Harry's mind. It's the last thing Harry's aware of before falling into a seizure.

"Bollocks," the Assistant swears, letting go of the seizing boy and levitating him to hover in mid-air so as not to thrash on the ground and hurt himself. "Didn't mean to do that."

He closes his eyes for a moment and when he opens them again they're blue once more and no longer glowing, and he shakes his head slightly. Manipulating his vision to be able to see magic is incredibly difficult and slightly disorientating, as it paints everything in vibrant colours, but it does let him know things about magic that he couldn't otherwise figure out, such as the fact that Harry has more magic flowing through him than anyone the Assistant has ever met, making his magic fundamentally different to the Assistant's. He likes that; it's not often the Assistant finds himself learning something new and he never considered that his counterparts might use magic differently than he does. Where Harry has huge amounts of power flowing through him, the Assistant has only an average amount; what makes the Assistant formidable in his own right is his ability to manipulate that magic in ways no one else can.

Harry's still seizing and the Assistant frowns worriedly. When five minute pass and it hasn't stopped, he swears and digs in his pockets for something to turn into a portkey.

* * *

Sirius is just entering the Ministry, hidden under the Invisibility Cloak, when the pendant turns hot. He steps over the still sleeping security guard with an insincerely muttered apology and races towards the lifts. As soon as he reaches the ninth, he calls out, "Molly?"

There's no response to his call as he steps off the lifts. His wand is in hand and he lifts it, muttering, " _Homenum revelio_."

A white glow shines from the side corridor and he moves forward cautiously. "Molly?"

His foot hits something. He bends, feeling with one hand, grabs the Invisibility Cloak and pulls it off. Mrs Weasley is still slumped on the floor, completely unconscious. He pulls down the hood of his own cloak.

" _Rennervate!_ "

Mrs Weasley gives a small cry of shock when she sees his floating head and he shushes her, glancing around nervously.

"You hurt?"

Mrs Weasley shakes her head and takes the hand he offers, letting him help her to her feet. "Someone must have snuck up on me. Is that why you're here?"

"Harry left the school. He's here. It possible he's the one that attacked you."

"No! But why would he be here? I thought he didn't know about the prophecy."

"I don't—" he breaks off, feeling the pendant abruptly turn cooler. "He's gone."

"What?"

"Harry, he's—look, are you alright? I have to go."

"Yes, I'm fine, but I don't under-"

"I'll explain later!" Sirius calls, running for the lift.


	42. Chapter 42

"Headmaster!"

Dumbledore looks up at the portrait of Dilys Derwent, who was headmistress in the eighteenth century but a notable healer before that, giving her a portrait in both the headmaster's office and in Saint Mungo's hospital.

"The Evans boy is at the hospital, came right into the main reception area, by portkey looks like. He's seizing bad."

"He was alone?"

"Yes."

* * *

Sirius follows the tracking charm on the pendant halfway across London until it brings him to a derelict store front, feeling almost uncomfortably warm as it rests in his palm. He glances up and down the street, takes off the Invisibility Cloak and pulls the pendant over his head, tucking it into the front of his robes before stepping through the window of the shop like it doesn't even exist, feeling only a sensation like passing through water and then finding himself in the main reception of Saint Mungo's hospital.

* * *

Snape's pacing his office when a burst of fire appears over his desk then vanishes again, leaving only a feather and a slip of parchment. He snatches it up, reading the three words written on it then slumping into his chair, trembling as he buries his face in his hands.

_Harry is safe._

* * *

The Assistant creeps into the Marauders' home, Apparating straight into Harry's bedroom and going to his bed, lifting the pillow and frowning when he finds no prophecy underneath. He tosses the covers, but there's no sign of the prophecy anywhere in the bed.

"You son of bitch, you moved it again," he mutters, and starts to go through the rest of the room. He's just rifling through the desk when he hears a barking from down the hall. He freezes, listening carefully for footsteps to follow, but instead hears only the scratching of claws against a door and whining, then more barks. He turns away from the desk, going to the chest of drawers, and as he does glances out the window and notices the full moon hanging in the sky.

"Oh, shit," he whispers, looking back at the door. "Damnit, Remus, you had to stay in the house?"

He hesitates, thinking of leaving, but decides to carry on. He's not got much left to check and it sounds like Lupin's locked up anyway, but a few minutes later he's forced to admit that the prophecy isn't in the room.

On a hunch he heads to Hogwarts instead, sneaking into the Slytherin fourth year boys' dorm silent and invisible, moving straight to Harry's bed and crouching in front of the trunk. It's locked but it doesn't take long for him to get it to spring open. He searches through it, panic bubbling in his chest when he doesn't find the prophecy. He looks around at the sound of muttering from one of the other beds but it's just Cid sleep talking. The Assistant looks through the trunk again but the prophecy definitely isn't there. He shuts it, moving to check through the bedside cabinet and humming with satisfaction when he finds the little cupboard on it locked and charmed. It doesn't take him long to break the spells on it and he smiles when he finds the prophecy sat inside.

He goes to the cave in the mountainside over Hogsmeade, looks at the prophecy, and then tosses it to the ground, Disapparating before it even smashes and never seeing the ghostly figure rise from the remains and speak the prophecy.

He reappears at Saint Mungo's and sneaks his way into the room where Harry has been moved. Sirius is sat in a chair by his bed and the Assistant casts a Sleeping Spell on him before slipping into the room, moving to the bed and laying a hand on Harry's head, closing his eyes and rifling through his memories. He isn't sure he'd managed to properly erase the memories of his identity before Harry seized, but Harry has no memories after the Assistant lifts him off the floor and first uses Legilimency to find the prophecy. Satisfied, the Assistant slips out again.

* * *

Harry knows where he is as soon as he opens his eyes. He's become familiar with the white walls and tiled ceilings of Saint Mungo's hospital rooms, brightly lit in the morning sunlight, and his initial confusion is only to wonder why he's there, then he remembers breaking into the Department of Mysteries and being confronted by the Assistant, and he sits up.

"Whoa!"

Sirius jumps out of the chair beside the bed, hands going to Harry's shoulders and pushing him back down. "Hey, you're alright, you're okay."

"The proph- I have to—the Assistant, he's a Death Eater!"

"Calm down, kid. You had a bad seizure, you need to relax."

"How did I get here?"

Sirius perches on the edge of the bed, brushing hair away from Harry's face. "Portkey. You want to tell me what you were doing in the Ministry of Magic when you should have been at Hogwarts?"

"Am I in big trouble?"

"Yeah, kid, you are. Why were you there?"

"There's a prophecy," Harry says reluctantly, "about me and Voldemort. It's why he tried to kill me as a baby."

"Is that what the Assistant told you on Saturday?"

"I suppose Mundungus Fletcher told you about him?"

Sirius nods.

"Was he spying on me?"

"There's a powerful evil wizard out to kill you; you thought we wouldn't be keeping an eye on you?" Sirius points out, then: "So you decided you'd just waltz into the Ministry and steal a prophecy, which you heard about from a Death Eater no less?"

"I didn't know he was a Death Eater before."

"You knew he was untrustworthy and unreliable. What made you think he'd tell the truth?"

"He's never lied to me before. He's helped me, a lot. He saved my life in the graveyard in June. Besides," he adds defensively, "it was true. There is a prophecy and you know it about, don't you? That's why Mrs Weasley was there, isn't it?"

"You shouldn't have attacked her."

"I didn't attack her!" he cries, sitting up again. "She was already knocked out when I got there!"

"So you just left her? You didn't think to help?"

Harry flushes, looking down at his hands.

"Tell me what happened in the Ministry."

Harry does, saying how he searched for the prophecies, eventually found them and the one about him, only to get ambushed by the Assistant, how he Wished it away, and that's the last thing he remembers before the seizure.

"You Wished the prophecy out of the hall?"

"I didn't want him to get it."

Sirius shakes his head, mouth curled into an incredulous smile. "You never cease to amaze me, kid. Do you know what kind of protections there are on that place to stop people magically removing things? And you just... where did you send it?"

"My trunk, at school."

Sirius stares for a moment, then nods. "Yeah, sure, of course. I mean, if you can get it out of the Department of Mysteries, you can get it into Hogwarts too." He shakes his head again. "Merlin, kid, you're scary sometimes. Get some rest. We'll talk more later."

* * *

The Assistant lies on the floor of the Riddle House sitting room, throat raw from screaming, body still trembling from the Cruciatus.

"Smashed," Voldemort's cold voice says. "A man of your power and age and you could not keep a single prophecy from being smashed by a teenager."

"My lord, I tried," the Assistant replies raspily. "His magic... it's different to mine. I hadn't realised."

"I do not care for your excuses. You have failed me, Harry. Or," he says slowly, "perhaps you just didn't want me to have it, that your sympathy for the boy is greater than your loyalty to me."

"No! My lord, I am yours. I—"

" _Crucio!_ "

* * *

Harry jerks awake with a scream, hands flying to his forehead as his scar burns and he imagines he can feel the Cruciatus stinging at his skin. Hands touch his arms and he flinches then looks between them to see Lupin bent over him, his tired face creased with worry.

"Harry, calm down, it's okay, it was just a nightmare."

"I saw him. The Assistant. And Voldemort. I saw—it's like I was him."

"You saw them?" Lupin asks, covering Harry's hands with his own and gently pulling them away from his head. "Doing what?"

"I was—Voldemort was torturing him for failing. He thinks the prophecy's been smashed."

Lupin frowns. "Tell Dumbledore about that when you get back to school. There's something you need to know. Someone broke into our house last night and they went through your bedroom."

"My room? Why? Was it a thief?"

"Perhaps, but as far as I can tell, nothing was taken and they didn't go anywhere else in the house. Given what you told Sirius about last night, it's possible it was the Assistant searching for the prophecy."

He tells Harry that Sirius has gone to contact Dumbledore and a couple of other Order members who'd been looking for Harry. Sirius returns just after lunch and tells Harry that he's to see Dumbledore as soon as he gets back to Hogwarts.

"There's one other thing," Sirius says, taking a badly wrapped package about the size of a paperback book from his pocket. "I want you to have this. Found it when I was going through my stuff the other day."

"What is it?"

Sirius gestures and Harry opens it. There's a small mirror inside, square, dirty, and old. Lupin, still in the chair beside the bed, leans forward. "Is that...?"

Harry glances at him then at Sirius, who explains, "It's a two-way mirror. I have the other one. James and I used to use them when we were in separate detentions, but I want you to use it to contact me if you ever need, alright? For anything. Post going in and out the school is being monitored, so this is a touch safer and more immediate."

"Alright," Harry says, a little surprised. Sirius leans closer tucking a finger under Harry's chin and catching his gaze firmly.

"I mean it, kid. You need anything, you call me, okay? No more of this running off on your own thing. I'm your godfather and I'm here for you."

Harry nods, not quite trusting himself to speak past the guilt and gratitude suddenly threatening to overwhelm him.

They let him floo back home and check his room before returning to Hogwarts, but there's nothing missing. He gives Kiwi a hug and remakes the bed, carefully placing her against the pillows again before leaving.

He floos straight into Dumbledore's office, where he's told to take a seat and given a cup of tea. He sips at it as Dumbledore stands over one of his many strange silver contraptions, which is giving off puffs of purple smoke, and as he does Harry feels a now familiar calm settle over him, the same sensation he gets before every Potions and Defence class.

"You spiked my tea with Draught of Peace," he says, lowering the cup.

"I did," Dumbledore says without guilt or shame, turning away from his contraption and moving to sit behind his desk. He doesn't meet Harry's gaze, staring instead at a point somewhere past his left ear. "Our conversation will likely ire you and I wished to avoid too much unnecessary damage."

"You could have just given it to me straight," Harry tells him, aware that he should be annoyed but isn't.

"Harry, I must apologise to you," Dumbledore says. He's still not looking at him.

"For what?"

"For not telling you what I should have three years ago."

Harry frowns. "I don't understand."

"Do you recall, after you fought Professor Quirrell, that you asked me why Voldemort attacked you as a baby?"

"You refused to tell me," Harry says, and if it weren't for the Draught of Peace he might sound bitter. "But it doesn't really matter now, does it? It's the prophecy."

"It is, but had I told you then, you would not have been lured into the Ministry last night."

"So let me get this straight: you're apologising for what I did?"

"I am apologising for keeping things from you and expecting that you would not seek out those things when an alternative source offered them. You see, myself and the rest of the Order already knew that the Assistant was a Death Eater."

Harry takes a large gulp of his tea, feeling the Draught of Peace in it push back the anger that sparks at Dumbledore's words. "Why did no one tell me? Why didn't Mundungus..." he trails off, remembering that he'd been fooling Mundugus on Saturday, Wishing for him not to pay attention.

"The Assistant has shown himself to be... fond of you. I had hoped that, if he approached you again, he might reveal information to you, as he has before, that he wouldn't if you knew he was a Death Eater."

"And then you expected me to tell you all about it, is that right?"

"Not to me specifically, but yes, I had hoped you would inform Sirius. I underestimated your distrust of adults and that is something else for which I accept a substantial amount of blame."

"Is that why you won't look at me?"

Dumbledore sighs and his gaze drops to his fingers, which are linked and resting on his lap. "I beg you to forgive me my rudeness, Harry, but that is connected to another thing that I kept from you."

"Seems like you've been keeping a lot of things from me. And you wonder why I don't trust people."

"Then let me begin to rectify that. Fourteen years ago, when Voldemort failed to kill you, I suspected that a connection had been forged between you through the scar on your forehead."

"Yeah, you told me that in May after I dreamt about him. I had another one today," he adds, as Lupin had told him to tell Dumbledore about it, "this morning when I was sleeping."

"In which you saw Voldemort?"

"Not... not exactly. It's more like I was Voldemort. He was torturing the Assistant for not getting the prophecy, but... he thought it was smashed. Voldemort, I mean. He was really angry because he thought the Assistant hadn't stopped me from smashing it and then he accused him of being disloyal. And he called him Harry. I guess that's his real name. "

Surprise flickers across Dumbledore's face and something Harry can't quite put a name to flashes in his eyes.

"Thank you," Dumbledore says quietly. "That is useful information. To return to what I was saying, this connection between you and Voldemort, whilst for now an annoyance to you, I imagine, could become dangerous if Voldemort ever realises it exists. If he does—"

"He could use it against me," Harry realises. "He could see me like I see him."

Dumbledore nods sadly. "More over, he could force his way into your mind and use it to manipulate and misdirect your thoughts. It is for this reason that I will not maintain eye contact. I have no wish to give Voldemort more incentives to attempt to penetrate your mind."

"I don't understand."

"If Voldemort suspects that our relationship is anything more than that of teacher and pupil, then he would seize the chance to possess you and use you against me."

"Well there's nothing to worry about there. It isn't more than teacher and pupil," Harry points out, a bite to his voice that hints at the hatred he might express if not for the Draught of Peace.

"Except there is," Dumbledore says softly. "You thoroughly dislike and distrust me—something which you and Voldemort have in common. As you well know, your magic is dangerous when you are angry. How much more dangerous do you think it would be if the damage you cause were directed at the source of your anger?"

"Is there a way to break it, this connection?"

"No. However," Dumbledore adds, "there is a way to block it. Have you ever heard of Occlumency?"

"It sounds vaguely familiar. I might have come across the term before."

"It is a branch of magic concerned with defending the mind from external penetration. I have already arranged for you to receive tutelage in it from Professor Snape. I fully expect you will have as much ease learning it as you do with almost everything else."

Harry scowls. "I want to learn from someone else. Or just give me a book about it."

"Occlumency is a magic best learned in practice, and I am afraid that Professor Snape is the only option. Occlumency and Legilimency—the art of penetrating the mind—are obscure branches of magic; very few people know it. Professor Snape is a skilled in both and given the nature of this magic and his knowledge of your health issues, he is the ideal person to teach you."

Harry can't really argue with that, but he thinks he'll be less accepting about it when the Draught of Peace wears off.

"Are you going to tell me the prophecy now?"

"Certainly, if you'll return it."

Harry holds out his hand and Wishes the prophecy from his trunk. When it doesn't appear, he frowns and tries again, but still nothing happens. "That's weird."

"Do you need to go down to Slytherin?" Dumbledore asks lightly, his gaze on Harry's empty hand.

"I shouldn't. I Wished it into my trunk, I should be able to Wish it out."

"You classmates will all be in lessons; you can, ah... Wish... your trunk into my office to look through it."

Harry gets up, pushing his chair back and doing as suggested. His frown deepens when it appears without trouble. He bends, pressing a hand to it and hearing the lock click then lifting the lid.

"Someone's been in here."

Dumbledore stands, coming around the desk and looking into the trunk. "You're sure?"

Harry nods. "I keep it tidy," he says, digging through the mess. "But I should be the only one who can get into it."

"I fear you bedroom at home was not the only place the Assistant visited last night."

"It's not here. The prophecy. It's gone." He looks up at Dumbledore and for a brief moment their eyes meet. Despite the Draught of Peace, Harry feels a sudden and intense rush of hatred for the man, and one of the many objects on Dumbledore's rickety tables explodes. Harry jumps and Fawkes, perched on his stand by the desk, gives a startled squawk.

"Sorry!"

"Not to worry," Dumbledore says calmly. "I have quite enough possessions that I can survive losing one or two."

Harry looks back at his trunk, closing the lid and getting to his feet, sending it back to Slytherin but keeping his eyes fixed on the spot where it'd sat.

"If the Assistant stole the prophecy, why did he tell Voldemort I smashed it? Do you think he's not really loyal?"

"I think the Assistant is a mystery that will not be easily unravelled."

"You're still going to tell me the prophecy though, right?" Harry says. "You do know it, don't you?"

"I do and I shall tell you. Please take a seat again."

Harry does, watching Dumbledore go to a black cabinet beside Fawkes' stand and take from it a shallow stone basin, carved with runes around the edges and filled with a silvery substance that seems to be both liquid and gas. Dumbledore brings it to the desk, setting it down and taking his seat.

"What's that?" Harry asks.

"This is a Pensieve. It is a device used to store thoughts and memories, allowing one to examine them at leisure from an outside perspective. I use it when, and I'm sure you're familiar with the sensation, I find I simply have too many thoughts and memories crammed into my mind."

Harry can't say he's ever felt that way, but he wonders if the voice counts as something he could remove and place in the Pensieve.

On the tail of that thought comes the realisation that he hasn't heard the voice since waking up in the hospital. The Draught of Peace would explain it's silence in the office, but not why it had said nothing in the hospital when normally it would have plenty to say.

Dumbledore lifts his wand and presses the tip to his temple for a moment then drawing it away, bringing with it a long silver strand that Harry at first thinks is hair, but then he realises it's the same silvery stuff that's in the Pensieve. He lets it fall into the basin, watches it swirl for a moment, then sighs and prods the contents with his wand. Harry watches as a figure rises out of it, draped in shawls, her eyes magnified to enormous size behind her glasses, and she revolves slowly, her feet in the basin. Harry thinks she looks vaguely familiar. When she speaks, it's in harsh, hoarse tones that Harry doesn't expect from her.

_"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches... Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies... and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not... and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives... The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies..."_

For several long minutes after the figure stops speaking, the office is filled with absolute silence. Harry stares at the Pensieve, repeating in his head what he'd just heard, going over it, figuring it out and then lifting his gaze to Dumbledore, who's eyes remain fixed on the stone basin.

"I have to kill him."


	43. Chapter 43

"I have to kill him."

Dumbledore's expression is one unlike Harry's ever seen on him before—sad, apologetic, regretful.

"Yes," he says quietly.

"Why didn't you tell me this before? This is... of all the things to keep from me, _this_..."

"You would have me tell an eleven year old boy that he was destined to one day defeat the darkest wizard to walk the earth?"

Put like that, Harry can see his point, but he still persists. "If I'd known, I could have done it in the graveyard. I could have Wished him dead."

"Could you?" Dumbledore asks lightly, but Harry detects a hint of something else. "Could you so easily have brought about the death of another human being?"

"He tried to kill me. He would have that night if the Assistant hadn't arrived. He killed my mother. I have every right to kill him."

"No one would say otherwise, but the act of willingly and knowingly taking life from another is not so simple as one might think, and Voldemort has gone to great and incredibly dark lengths to try and make himself immortal. He has done things to himself that even your unique brand of magic may not be able to overcome."

"So what, I'm supposed to sit back and let him kill me instead?"

Something approximating a smile comes onto Dumbledore's face for the first time that afternoon. "You forget, Harry, that the Order of the Phoenix exists for the sole purpose of fighting Voldemort and his people. No one can cheat death forever and I fully believe that a time will come when Voldemort will be defeated once and for all.

"Until that day," Dumbledore continues, "you have plenty of other worries with which to concern yourself. For now, you should focus on your schooling."

"Hardly seems important now. I've got a dark wizard to kill; what do my grades matter to that?"

"The pursuit of knowledge should never be underestimated, Harry. The correct knowledge is what will allow us to overcome Voldemort."

That may be, but Harry doubts that knowledge is something he'll learn in a Hogwarts class, especially not with teachers like Dolores Umbridge.

"I also believe there is the matter of your punishment to discuss. Whatever your intentions, you did leave the school without permission and break into a secure government facility."

Harry doesn't say that it hadn't seemed all that secure to him.

"You will serve detention with Professor Snape every Saturday morning for the rest of the term and your Hogsmeade privileges will be revoked for the rest of the year. I'm sure you understand that no one, least of all Professor Umbridge, can be made aware of exactly what you did last night, so the story I have concocted to explain your absence is that you snuck into Hogsmeade last night and after suffering a severe seizure whilst there, you were rushed to Saint Mungo's."

Harry nods. It's a fair punishment.

"One more thing, Mr Evans," Dumbledore says, and Harry takes the use of his surname as a sign he should pay close attention, "I strongly advise you obey all school rules from now on. There are some people who wanted you expelled for last night's events and I cannot guarantee that you would not be if there is any further rule breaking on your part, including wearing that magical eye you currently have in."

"Yes, sir," Harry replies. He doesn't need anyone to tell him 'some people' means Umbridge, and as he leaves the office and descends the revolving staircase, he pulls up his usual glamour to make his blue eye look green.

Classes are letting out just as he leaves Dumbledore's office and he joins the crowd, heading down through the castle towards Slytherin.

"Harry! Hey, wait up!"

He pauses, turning with a smile as Neville jogs up to him. "Hey, Neville."

"Hey. You alright? Heard you got rushed to Saint Mungo's last night."

"Yeah, I'm fine though. Spend half my life in that hospital, it seems."

"It true you tried to sneak into Hogsmeade as well? Why?" he asks when Harry nods. "We were just there on Saturday."

Harry shrugs. "I was feeling rebellious."

"Maybe you are as mad as they say," Neville teases, then glances around before leaning closer. "You know we're still doing... the thing, what we talked about on Saturday?"

"Yeah, I know. Tomorrow, right? Eight o'clock?"

Neville nods, straightening up and glances around nervously again. "I'm heading to the library to meet Hermione; she had Arithmancy class. You want to come?"

"No, I need to get back to Slytherin. I'll see you guys tomorrow at the thing."

He realises that attending a forbidden meeting to practice magic the Ministry doesn't want them learning explicitly goes against what Dumbledore just told him not to do, but he's not going to pass it up. Besides, he's not the only one who'll be breaking the rules, so it's not quite as bad as it could be.

* * *

"The fuck did you try sneaking to Hogsmeade for?" Cid asks when Harry gets back to Slytherin. "We were there on Saturday."

"Felt rebellious."

"Clearly," Tyler drawls. "So how far did you get before they caught you?"

"Into the village. They only got me because I seized, got rushed to Saint Mungo's. They never would have known otherwise."

"Next time you should take that Invisibility Cloak of yours," he says, grinning as Harry raises his eyebrows.

"Next time?"

"Yeah, and you're taking us with you," Cid adds. "Shitty thing to leave your friends behind and it's much more fun getting drunk with others than alone."

"Like you know," Tyler scoffs.

"Excuse you, I've been drunk before."

"When?"

"In the summer. Mother hosts big parties for all her rich, fancy friends. I nicked some booze and got trashed."

"Bet you're a lightweight. Probably passed out after one beer."

"I did not. You probably would."

Tyler shrugs. "I wouldn't drink. See, if I was at a fancy party I'd be getting laid while you're off drinking yourself into a sad, lonely stupor with only your hand for company."

"Fuck off," Cid retorts, shoving him. "Nothing impressive about being a whore."

"Whores have sex for money; I do it for fun, and you're just jealous you still haven't managed to bang Tabitha yet. Or anyone else."

"You haven't actually fucked anyone yet," Cid says, but he sounds doubtful, the teasing tone slipping away. "You've just had a few hand jobs."

"I have."

"You're lying."

"I'm not."

"With who?"

"Charlie, my Muggle friend back home."

Cid scoffs. "Yeah, right. You're just saying that because we can't check with him."

"Her," Harry corrects, staring at Tyler. "Are you serious? But I thought she was all homophobic and stuff so you guys weren't friends."

"One of her older friends from school gave her some shit about the homophobia and made her see sense, so she's come around."

"And you really...?"

"Yeah, this summer."

"I still don't believe you," Cid says. Tyler shrugs.

"It's true. We did it in her tree house while her parents were out. It wasn't that great to be honest, but I guess it's one of those things you get better at."

Cid stares at him, apparently struggling to decide whether to believe him or not. Harry looks down, face flushing slightly as he imagines it.

"Fuck!" Cid cries. "That's totally not fair!"

"So is it true that you've kissed half the people in our year?" Harry asks Tyler, who looks at him incredulously. "What?"

"It's not just our year, it's half the school," Cid says, half impressed and half jealous. "And he's not just snogged them. He's jerked them off, blown them, fingered them, and got it all back. Tyler the defiler."

Harry pulls a face. "Tyler the defiler? That's a stupid name."

"You're telling me," Tyler grumbles.

"But fitting," Cid declares. "How many classrooms have you defiled with your filthy habits?"

"I clean up afterwards and you don't think they're so filthy when you're wishing you could do it to Tabitha. Did you seriously not know all this?" Tyler asks Harry.

"Well it's not like you ever told me!"

" _Everyone_ knows, Harry."

"I didn't," he huffs.

* * *

Harry's alone in the dorm later when there's a knock at the door. He's knelt on the floor at the end of the bed, tidying his trunk, but swivels his magical eye to look over.

"Come in, Draco."

The door opens and he steps in, looking over at Harry then frowning when Harry glances up and he sees two green eyes. "How did you know it was me?"

Harry smiles. "You want something?"

He comes over, letting the door click shut behind him, and sits down on the bed, looking over the end at Harry. "Heard you snuck into Hogsmeade last night."

"Yeah."

"You making a run for it?"

Harry looks at him questioningly.

"You looked like you were making plans to run off on Saturday. I wondered if you decided to go through with it but got caught before you got very far."

"I wasn't caught exactly; I had a seizure, got carted to Saint Mungo's. Would you have missed me if I did run off?"

Draco smiles. "You'd come back soon enough, when you got lonely again. I don't have a queen-sized bed here though, so I hope you don't mind getting cosy when we sleep together."

"What makes you think I'd come running to you? I've got other friends to go to."

"Because," Draco says, and something in his voice makes Harry look up, green eyes meeting grey, "you came running to me last time."

There's something between them that Harry can't put a name to and he looks away before it becomes too intense.

"Of course the other option is you take me with you," Draco says lightly, standing and slipping his hands into his pockets, moving a few steps away. Harry glances at his back.

"You want to run away?"

"No, but I'd hate for you to get lonely. Not to mention you really shouldn't be alone for extended periods, given your health issues."

"I'm touched that you care so much, Draco."

"So you should be," Draco says, a grin on his face as he turns to look at Harry, and some of the tension between them slips away.

He lays in bed that night, staring at the canopy above him as he thinks about what he's learned that day. As he goes over the prophecy in his mind, he starts feeling the fear that the Draught of Peace kept at bay earlier—fear that Voldemort will kill him first, fear that Dumbledore's right and when the time comes he won't be able to do it, fear that when the time comes it'll be too late and he'll already be dead, dragged down by the hellhounds he knows are coming for him.

"Nothing to say on the matter?" he murmurs. The voice still hasn't made itself heard and it doesn't now. Only silence answers his question and he rolls over with sigh. A year since he started hearing it and he never thought he'd miss it if it left, but he would appreciate the voice's input on this, even if it's just to insult him for being afraid.

He half expects to have dreams that night of Voldemort and Diggory and the Assistant, of prophecies and murder and hellhounds, but instead he dreams of Draco, of watching him exchange hot, frantic kisses with a faceless male figure, their hands sliding over one another, the faceless male trailing his mouth along Draco's throat and drawing quiet, desperate moans from him.

He wakes up hornier than he's ever been before and when he sees Draco in the common room that morning he has to look away and pretend he doesn't see him as he hurries past, Wishing for no one to notice his red face.

* * *

He pauses as he's about to take his Draught of Peace before Potions, lowering the vial and looking at the purple liquid inside. It shut the voice up all those times and now he wonders if it's shut it up for good. If it has, his continued usage will only prevent it coming back and although part of him realises that's a good thing, his head feels too quiet and empty without the voice. He misses it.

Besides, what does he need the Draught of Peace for anyway? Snape? It's ridiculous. The man doesn't give a damn about him and Harry's wasting his energy hating him? Not to mention he needs to learn how to control his emotions and magical outbursts and he'll never do that while he's dosing himself with Draughts of Peace.

"You're late, Mr Evans."

Harry stands in the doorway of the classroom, staring at Snape. He can feel the hatred and anger bubbling inside him, but he pushes it down, ignores it. Snape's not worth his anger and hatred. He's just another scumbag adult like any other on the street and Harry doesn't blow things up because of them.

"Sorry, professor," he apologises insincerely, moving to his seat. Snape watches him, dark eyes narrowed slightly, but he says nothing until Harry sits down and sets up his cauldron.

"Don't let it happen again."

He regrets not taking the Draught of Peace before Defence Against the Dark Arts that afternoon. Instead of an hour spent reading, he spends it listening to Cid tap his fingers and Tyler sigh with boredom every five minutes, while watching Tabitha Sinclair and Toni Kaidkin scribbling notes to each other on the table in front of him.

* * *

He, Cid, and Tyler are some of the first to arrive at the Room of Requirement that evening. It's set up like it was when Hermione and Neville first suggested the idea to him and he joins them as Cid and Tyler look around, inspecting the books and the Dark Detectors set up at the back of the room.

When everyone's there, Harry locks the door and Neville and Hermione stand up at the front of the group, both looking nervous and unsure that they really want to be doing this. Hermione clears her throat several times before she eventually says, "So, um, I thought that, to begin, we should come up with a name for the group, to promote a feeling of team spirit and unity."

"Can we be the Anti-Umbridge League?" says Angelina Johnson, the Gryffindor Quidditch team captain.

"Or the Ministry of Magic Are Morons Group?" suggests Fred Weasley.

"I was thinking," says Hermione, frowning at Fred, "more of a name that didn't tell everyone what we were up to, so we can refer to it safely outside meetings."

"The Defence Association?" says Cho Chang, Ravenclaw seventh year and Seeker. "The D.A. for short, so nobody knows what we're talking about?"

Hermione's face lights up with an idea. "How about instead of Defence Association, we call it Dumbledore's Army? Umbridge thinks that's what Dumbledore's trying to create and it's why she won't teach us proper defence. It'd be kind of fitting, I think."

Everyone looks shocked at that revelation but there's murmurs of agreement from almost everyone. Harry doesn't say anything, but silently he objects to the idea of being a soldier for _Dumbledore_. Hermione takes the list of their names and writes in big letters across the top DUMBLEDORE'S ARMY then pins it to the wall.

"Right," Neville says when that's done, "we thought we'd begin with the Disarming Spell."

"Oh _please_ ," says Zacharias Smith, the Hufflepuff who'd demanded proof of Voldemort's return in the Hog's Head. "I don't think _Expelliarmus_ is exactly going to help us against You Know Who, do you?"

Neville stutters a little. Hermione looks like she's trying to come up with a convincing argument for it, which Harry thinks she should of done before the meeting. He stands up, drawing everyone's attention.

"Get up, Smith."

"What?" Smith says stupidly.

"I said get up, and take your wand out. Everyone else move aside."

Smith looks around, hoping for someone to argue with Harry and say he's being stupid, but the rest of them look as stumped as he is, so Smith gets to his feet, drawing his wand as the rest of the students move aside.

"Stand over there. You're going to pretend to be Voldemort and I'm going to be... well, me, because let's face it, statistics say I'm probably the one that'll face him again at some point."

"I'm not pretending to be You Know Who," Smith counters, looking outraged at the suggestion.

"Fine, then pretend to be a Death Eater, or a stuck up Hufflepuff, but either way, attack me."

Smith looks around but the others are all still silent, watching to see what'll happen. Harry draws his wand, holding it before him in a defensive position. Smith raises his own, opens his mouth to shout a spell, and Harry moves, swishing his wand in a diagonal motion.

" _Expelliarmus!_ "

Smith's wand leaps out of his hand and clatters to the floor. Smith's face turns red with anger and humiliation. Harry raises an eyebrow.

"I told you to attack me."

"You disarmed me."

"So? We're not duelling in front of a panel of judges for a trophy. I told you—you're Voldemort, I'm the Boy Who Lived. You want me dead. So attack me."

Smith lunges for his wand. Harry summons it. Once again, Smith straightens and glares at him.

"Is that all you've got?"

"What am I supposed to do? You've got my wand, I've lost."

"You're a pureblood, aren't you?"

"Yeah, so?"

Harry turns to the rest of the group. "I've got his wand. He thinks the fight's over. Anyone disagree?"

"He could beat you up," Tyler suggests.

"Excellent suggestion from someone raised around Muggles," Harry says with a pointed look at Smith, then notices Hermione with her hand in the air. "Hermione?"

"He could use martial arts, like Tae Kwon Do or something just to subdue you, rather than actually beat you up," she says with a frown at Tyler.

"Even better, for me at least. He could use pepper spray, if he had any. He could rugby tackle me and steal back his wand and mine. There's a lot of thing he could do but he spent his life being told magic is the be all and end all and if he can't do magic... well, then he's not much good at anything."

"Fuck you, Evans," Smith says, turning on Harry angrily. "I could beat you to a bloody pulp any day."

Harry lifts a hand to gesture to him. "Yes, you could. That's exactly the point. You _could_ have charged at me and physically attacked me. You _could_ have punched me and wrestled the wand from my hand while I was reeling from the blow. But you _didn't_. When we fought, you didn't think to assault me, you just thought to curse me. You're only thinking about attacking me now because you're humiliated and angry. Do you think if you lose your wand in a fight that a Death Eater is going to stand there taunting you for a little while, making you angry enough to physically attack him? No, he's going to curse your nuts off and leave you lying for dead while he moves onto your friends."

He turns to the group, some of whom have comprehending expressions on their faces and his voice turns serious as he speaks. "This is why we need to start with _Expelliarmus_ —because it's possibly the most useful spell in your arsenal. All you purebloods, or half-bloods that were raised in an environment that focused on magic more than Muggle things—the minute someone takes away your wand, you freeze. You think you've lost everything because you can't do magic anymore. In fact there's probably more than a few Muggleborns who would freeze as well, because you've got used to relying so heavily on magic since you discovered it. Well here's a news flash—so do the Death Eaters. They probably freeze up more, because they're prejudiced louts who truly believe that magic is the only thing worthwhile knowing and when you take away their ability to do it, they're stumped.

"If there ever comes a time when you're fighting Death Eaters, they're not going to hesitate to kill you. Voldemort didn't hesitate to kill Cedric Diggory. Us being kids won't stop them, being students won't stop them, being a good, upstanding citizen won't stop them. We're targets, nothing more. But if you take away their wand, they're much less of a threat, especially if you've still got yours. Sure, they can still beat you to death, strangle you, whatever, but if you've still got your wand and you've got the reflexes, you can shield, you can curse them, you can do whatever. But they sure as hell can't cast the Killing Curse, and you've got a much better chance of surviving a strangulation than you do of surviving the Killing Curse."

"Except for you," calls George Weasley, and Harry smiles a little.

"I don't know what saved me last time, and I don't fancy finding out if I can do it again. I ever come face to face with Voldemort again, the first thing I'll do is take away his wand."

There's no more arguments about learning the Disarming Charm after that. Hermione comes over to Harry as everyone's practising, smiling broadly.

"I knew you'd be a good teacher."

"Whoa, hey, no I'm not the teacher. I was just making a point. You and Neville are still running this thing."

"I'm not sure they would agree with you."

"I don't care what they agree with. I'm not the teacher. You guys are in charge."

"Alright," she says, still grinning. "But you'll take a look at our lesson plan each week? You can at least tell us whether you agree with it or not."

"Fine," Harry sighs, feeling that he's going to end up running the D.A. whether he wants to or not.


	44. Chapter 44

"Today's detention will be used to teach you Occlumency," Snape tells Harry on Saturday morning. Snape stands over the desk in his office, using his wand to take thoughts and drop them into the Pensieve on the desk, the same one that Dumbledore used to show Harry the prophecy. "Assuming it does not trigger a seizure, I fully expect you to master it by lunch time."

Harry nods. He wants to ask what memories Snape's putting into the Pensieve but that would be taking an interest beyond that of a pupil to a teacher, and he's determined not to do that.

When Snape's done, he moves the Pensieve to one of the high shelves then turns to Harry. "I will attempt to break into your mind. You will resist me. You may disarm me or defend yourself in any other way you can think of, provided it is neither illegal nor causes me permanent harm. I would greatly appreciate it if you refrained from throwing me around as you have in the past."

"Yes, sir."

"Very well. Brace yourself... _Legilimency!_ "

He can feel it, this presence inside his head, and half-forgotten memories from his childhood begin to draw forwards, but before they can he Wishes simply Out and the presence vanishes.

Harry blinks, mind coming back to the office. Snape can't quite manage to hide that he's impressed.

"Your internal voice is remarkably vocal," Snape says coolly. "We will attempt it again. Try not to be so... loud this time. _Legilimency_."

Harry doesn't throw him out this time. He doesn't even try. When Snape first delves in, he draws out the very first memory Harry has, the day he fell down the stairs and hit the safety gate without coming to any harm. When other memories start flowing, he lets them: Vernon hitting him, being sat in the cupboard under the stairs for days on end, being forced to do chores way beyond what a six year old should have to do, more hitting, listening to his uncle shouting abuse at him for being an unlovable, worthless freak.

When he feels Snape start to draw out, he pulls him back in with a snarl. " _No_."

He hears a sharp intake of breath from Snape but he's focused on his mind, on the memories, and thinks of the day Vernon put him in the hospital, remembers the fear he felt as Vernon hit him again and again, of the pain, of lying in hospital afterwards, half blind, arm in a cast, stitches in his stomach from where they operated to fix the internal bleeding.

Snape staggers. Harry blinks and shakes his head slightly, now trying not to think of things he's spent years ignoring.

"I'm sorry."

Snape's voice is quiet. He's leant against the back wall, hands braced against the bricks, and he stares at Harry with undisguised guilt. It's the most open expression Harry's ever seen on him.

"I realise it's worth little and when your Draught of Peace wears off it may very well enrage you, but I am sorry."

"I haven't taken a Draught of Peace."

Snape stiffens.

"I realised that I was wasting a whole lot of energy hating you, but you're just not worth it. You didn't care about me; why should I care about you? So I've moved on. I'm over it. You're nothing more to me than just another teacher."

He thinks something like hurt flashes across Snape's face at that. He doesn't care.

They spend another hour and a half practising, until Harry can detect and eject or divert the subtlest invasion. Snape tells him it's not always about violently throwing someone out; sometimes it's better to make the invader think they've found what they want to find, presenting false memories and feelings to fool them. He rubs absently at his left forearm as he says it and Harry uses his magical eye to look through the black sleeve. He's not really surprised to see the Dark Mark burned into the skin underneath.

* * *

The Assistant lifts his head when his bedroom door opens. His cloak is gone and he sits on the floor, his back to the wall and his wrists bound in thick metal shackles that are charmed to wall above his head. His hair is dark and greasy, his eyes green, and his robes wet around the crotch. It's been a week since he'd broken into the Ministry of Magic and he's been like this since Voldemort finished torturing him for the broken prophecy.

Pettigrew enters and casts a Cleansing Spell on the Assistant first then a Deodorising Charm to dispel the scent of stale piss, then he finally comes over with a glass of water that he puts to the Assistant's mouth and tilts for him to drink. The Assistant gulps it down gratefully; all he's been given in the last week is water and his stomach aches with hunger. When he finishes drinking, Pettigrew draws his wand and stuns him.

Voldemort watches carelessly as Pettigrew, panting with effort, drags the unconscious Assistant into the sitting room and dumps him unceremoniously in the middle of the floor. Preston Yaxley, standing nearby, closes the thin, leather-bound book in his hands and moves over to the unconscious figure, looking him over briefly.

"My lord," he say to Voldemort, looking up from the Assistant, "I am honoured to be chosen for such a prestigious position. My gratitude is endless. I—"

"That will do," Voldemort interrupts. "Begin the ritual."

Yaxley crouches, taking a small knife from his pocket and using it to cut across the palm of the Assistant's right hand then across his own left hand. He presses their hands together, blood mingling, and recites a lengthy Latin ritual from the book. On the final word, two ribbons of light spring out from their joined hands, one a dark yellow, the other a bright silver but with a thin strip of black through it. The yellow coils itself around the Assistant's forearm, the silver around Yaxley's, and they glow brightly for a moment before fading away. When they have, Yaxley releases their hands, pocketing the knife and drawing his wand, tapping it to the cuts and sealing them with a murmured spell before straightening up.

" _Rennervate_."

The Assistant wakes, blinking sleepily and tilting his head to look around, taking in his surroundings and the people with him. His gaze settles on Yaxley, staring for a long moment, and then shifts to Voldemort.

"You transferred my Bond."

"You failed me. I have taken the necessary steps to ensure your complete obedience."

"You couldn't have picked someone who isn't a pervert?"

"Preston," Voldemort prompts.

"Tell me your Trigger," Yaxley orders the Assistant, who shuts his eyes and smiles.

"I don't know it. My last Master never saw fit to inform me."

"How can you not know it? He must speak it to fully ensure your obedience."

"That he must, but he needn't let me know it, which you'd know if you'd done your research properly. It's called Shrouding."

He hates Triggers and hates Shrouding even more. With it, his Master can speak his Trigger—the word that forces him to obey, leaving him utterly unable to fight—but the Assistant never knows what the word is. He hears it, but the subtle magic of the Shrouding means it could be a word as odd as supercalifragilisticexpialidocious and his mind, and anyone else's, would pay no attention to it than to the word 'the', and even if he's given an order as short as 'sit', the Shrouding still works to make him ignore his Trigger.

Even more unfortunately, the Assistant knows his Trigger is something relatively common and simple enough to be accidentally discovered. This is not the first time his Bond has been transferred to a new Master and several of them figure out his Trigger and use it against him. He did, in fact, lie when he said he was still Bound to his Lucius. He hasn't been for along time; it's just unfortunate enough that his last Master, the Bellatrix Lestrange of the previous timeline, didn't particularly like him and reiterated the orders to remain in Hogsmeade.

The Assistant opens his eyes again, looking at Voldemort. "You might at least have Bound me to someone knowledgeable, my lord. I fear my life is compromised by having my soul in the hands of someone so uneducated."

"Then let that fear encourage you to obey him even without your Trigger."

"I have little choice but to obey him, as you well know." He lifts his still bound hands. "Might I be relieved of my chains now, given that you have put me in far more restrictive, albeit invisible, ones?"

"Preston," Voldemort says, and the Assistant flicks his gaze to him.

"You will obey every order the Dark Lord gives you," he says, and the Assistant has to suppress an unhappy groan, lowering his hands and closing his eyes again as Yaxley continues talking. "You will not betray him. You will not fight him. You will speak to him with respect at all times. Is that clear?"

"Yes, _Master_ ," he mutters mockingly.

"You will speak to _me_ with respect. I ask you again, is that clear?"

A tremor runs through the Assistant and his hands clench, but he can't fight it. "Yes, Master," he says sincerely. Yaxley smirks.

Voldemort draws his wand, but instead of removing the shackles a jet of red light shoots towards the Assistant, hitting him in the chest and making his body jerk, leaving him unconscious once more.

" _Obliviate._ "

* * *

Sirius and Lupin are happily surprised to get a letter from Saint Mungo's saying that James consents to seeing them both again.

Sam greets them when they get there, shaking their hands and introducing herself.

"He's making progress," she tells them, "but he's still got a long way to go. I have to ask that whatever feelings you have towards Lucius Malfoy, you leave them at the door. As I said, he's making progress, but he's not yet ready to accept that what Lucius did was wrong."

She pauses and glances at Sirius then. "I know what happened last time you were here. James is still prone to using racist language. If he does, just gently correct him and continue with the conversation. You cannot lose your temper, Mr Black."

James smiles when they come in. It's only small, and a little forced, but it's there. He's sat in one of the meeting room chairs, his fingers drumming restlessly against the arm. His hair is clean and trimmed and his face is clean shaven, but he's still pale, his eyes heavily shadowed and haunted. He reminds Sirius of what he saw in the mirror the two or three times he looked in one during his year on the run.

"I'm sorry," James says. They're the first words any of them speak. "I'm sorry for the things I said last time you were here. They were hateful and cruel, and I shouldn't have said them."

"You think?" Sirius says, then grunts when Lupin kicks him.

"We accept your apology," Lupin says with a smile.

"So," James says after an awkward pause. "How's things?"

Sirius shrugs. "Y'know, good as can be, all things considered."

James glances at him. "Considering...?"

"Didn't anyone tell you? Voldemort's back."

James flinches at the name. "Everyone said it's a lie."

"It's not. The crackpots at the Ministry just refuse to accept it."

"How's Harry?"

"He's... alright," Lupin tells him.

"That sounds uncertain. Is there something wrong with him?"

Lupin smiles wryly. "In certain ways, yes. He has epilepsy, but he's just... not your average child."

"I know about the epilepsy, and his blindness. What happened to him was in the papers; _he_ told me about it. Does it bother him a lot?"

"No," Sirius answers firmly. "He's a tough kid."

"Wouldn't expect anything else from Lily's child," James says fondly, then frowns as a thought comes to him. "He lives with you, doesn't he? Why not with Snape?"

"Harry didn't know Severus was his father until this summer," Lupin explains. "Severus never told him."

"That's because _Severus_ ," Sirius sneers mockingly, "doesn't give a rat's arse about Harry."

James glances between them. "I think I'm missing something."

Lupin and Sirius glance at each other. Sirius shrugs. Lupin looks back to James. "Severus knew that Vernon Dursley was beating Harry before it reached the stage of putting him in the hospital. He attempted to threaten Vernon into stopping but without much success, and then Vernon put Harry in the hospital and after that Harry ran away. Harry hates Severus for not taking him away from that house."

"That explains why he got so upset when he was here," James says.

"What did you say to him?" Sirius asks, more than a hint of accusation in his voice. "He refused to tell us."

"He asked me if I'd have raised him if _he_ hadn't taken me, and I told him—Harry—that I'd have given him to Snape to raise."

"Would you?" Sirius asks, half sceptical and half challenging. "Would you really have given him to _Snivellus_?"

James looks surprised and then he smiles a little wistfully. "I'd forgotten that nickname."

"Would you?" Sirius demands. The small smile fades from James' face.

"I don't know what I'd have done. Lily only told me that Harry was Snape's the night the Dark Lord attacked Godric's Hollow. It's why I left the house; I needed to clear my head. Then Mast- _he_ attacked me and... I don't know what might have happened if I'd been free. I know that I loved Harry when he was a baby and maybe I would have raised him as my own, but it's hard for me to remember that over everything Master drilled into me. Harry was the Mudblood's bastard; why should I have raised him?"

Sirius makes to move and Lupin grabs his arm, glancing at him warningly even as he says gently to James, "Muggleborn."

James sighs, closing his eyes for a moment and running a hand through his hair. "Sorry," he mutters, opening his eyes again. "I don't even mean it. It's just been knocked into me so much. I loved Lily, I really did, and I never had anything against her for being Muggleborn."

"We know," Lupin says. "We did have to put up with you mooning over her for years before she finally dated you."

James almost smiles at that.

"What about Harry?" Sirius asks. "Got anything against him?"

"I don't know him, except what I've heard, which is all biased. But I'd like to get to know him."

* * *

The Assistant doesn't open his eyes when he drifts awake again. He knows instantly that something's wrong—no, not wrong. Different. He can feel it. An itch that is normally nothing more than a vague annoyance, something he can ignore for months and soothe with the caresses of an attentive and indulgent lover, is now burning, a raw nerve exposed and desperate for something to ease it. It's an ache that wouldn't be satisfied by the most experienced whores indulging his deepest, darkest desires until he's exhausted body and mind. It's a need to be physically close to his Master, a Master he knows instinctively is a great distance away.

He only opens his eyes when he hears his bedroom door open, not bothering to lift his head and look at Voldemort until the man has crossed the room and stands over him. He has no memory of engaging in the Bond transfer ritual and he's not about to inform Voldemort that whatever memory charms he used are pointless. He doesn't need to remember the ritual to know it's happened.

"Tell me, Harry, have you ever been imprisoned in Azkaban?"

"A few times."

"Do the Dementors drain your powers as much as they do anyone else?"

"I'm weakened but I can still do magic around them if I'm not chained with magic suppressants, although I've never let myself stay in their presence for any longer than a year; I don't know what an extended stay would do to me."

Voldemort lifts his wand and flicks it. The chains around the Assistant's wrists click and spring open, falling to the floor with a clang. Instantly the Assistant's appearance changes back to the familiar blond hair and blue eyes.

"I have work for you, Assistant."

* * *

James trashes his room. He tosses the bed, throws over the chairs, sends his dinner flying at a healer's head, and tries to strangle Dennis, the Muggleborn from down the hall. It's his first violent episode in weeks.

When he's calmed down, Sam comes to talk to him. He's been strapped to his bed and glares angrily up at the ceiling.

"What going on, James? Why did you trash your room and attack Dennis?"

"He's a filthy Mudblood."

"Muggle-"

"He's a Mudblood! They're all Mudbloods and filth and blood traitors and we all need teaching a lesson!"

"We?" Sam repeats, and James deflates, going limp on the bed, his angry glare falling away. He closes his eyes, sighing through his nose and saying nothing. "Is this about your friends?"

"They're not my friends," he says bitterly, without opening his eyes. "I'm not allowed to be friends with blood traitors and animals. _He_ said so."

Recently Lucius has only ever been 'he' and 'him', no longer 'master'. Sam was planning on addressing it in their next session, but she'll leave it for now. He's too volatile at the moment.

"James, you can be friends with whomever you like. If other people picked our friends, they wouldn't really be friends. We wouldn't like them for who they are; we'd only pretend to like them for someone else's sake."

"He'd be angry if he knew."

"Lucius doesn't run your life anymore, James. He doesn't know about anything you do, and even if he did, no one would let him hurt you again. He's locked away and he's staying that way for a long time."

James hates that. He's knows, logically, that Lucius had no right to lock him in a cellar for fourteen years and torture him in ways that make him shudder just to remember it, just like he knows that Lucius deserves to be imprisoned for what he did. But although James is feeling half-forgotten emotions about his old friends and the desire to reconnect with them, he also still wants to crawl back to Lucius, kneel at his feet, and profess undying loyalty. It's conflicting, to say the least.

* * *

At Harry's next detention, he gets told to sit at the table to one side, which holds several old, cobwebbed boxes filled with old report cards of previous punishments given to students. He's to rewrite them to replace records that have faded with age or been damaged by mice. It's slow, boring work punctuated by uncomfortable twists in his gut as he finds report cards bearing Sirius's name, as well as those of James, Lupin, and Pettigrew. He knows his godfather is fond of pranks and can be spiteful, but after so many hours spent writing out card after card, he's forced to come to the unpleasant realisation that Sirius and James had been bullies, plain and simple.

When he gets back to Slytherin later he takes from his trunk the two-way mirror Sirius gave him, sits on his bed and pulls the curtains shut, casting a Silencing Charm on them to make sure no one listens in before he looks down at the mirror.

"Sirius?"

He waits a moment for a response, but none comes.

"Sirius Black?"

For another moment nothing happens, and then he jumps as a hand appears on the mirror, a large, sweaty hand, and Sirius' voice, a little strained and breathless, sounds through it. "Five minutes, kid."

"Um... okay."

Ten minutes later he's still frowning at the mirror, feeling a little worried, when Sirius' face appears in it. His hair is ruffled and he still sounds a little breathless when he speaks.

"Still there, Harry?"

"Yeah, I'm here. Are you okay? You sounded weird."

Sirius chuckles and Harry hears the sound of Lupin laughing quietly beside him. "I'm fine, kid. What's up?"

But Harry's suddenly realised just what he interrupted and instead of answering he turns bright red, stuttering an apology and feeling his face burn up as Sirius and Lupin both laugh loudly.

"Harry, stop apologising," Sirius says, still grinning and wiping tears of laughter from his eyes. "We've been interrupted in worse positions and you'll get over it. It's not like you saw anything; trust me, that would be far more embarrassing for all of us."

Harry snaps his mouth shut, still bright red.

"What'd you call me for? Everything alright?"

Some of his embarrassment fades as he remembers the reason he called. "I had detention today, for the Ministry thing. I have to have them every Saturday for the rest of term."

"I know. With Snape, isn't it? Did it go alright?"

"I had to write out these old report cards from years ago that detail other people who did bad stuff."

"Okay," Sirius says slowly, clearly not understanding why this was a reason for Harry to call.

"You were in a lot of them, and James and sometimes Remus and Pettigrew."

"Not surprising. We did get in a lot of trouble back in school."

"You were bullies."

There's a pause, then Sirius mutters, "We weren't bullies."

"You used curses on people all the time, pulled tricks—not harmless pranks, but you actually hurt people."

"We were teenagers, Harry, and we did stupid things. All teenagers do. You certainly have."

"I don't bully and hurt people."

The image in the mirror blurs suddenly and he gets a glimpse of their bedroom before Lupin's face looks out.

"We can't change what we did, Harry," he says, "but we grew up. We're not teenagers anymore. We're only human, Harry—well, mostly," he says with a little smile, "and being human means making mistakes. There's plenty of things you've done or will do in the next few years which you'll regret when you're our age, things that you'll look back on and wonder what the hell you were thinking when you did it. It won't make you a bad person anymore than the things we did as teenagers make us bad people."

Harry nods, not so much out of agreement but because he really wants the conversation to end now. He hates it when people bring up the future.

"I should go. I'm sorry for disturbing you."

"It's fine," Lupin assures him. "We'd rather an awkward interruption than you feeling like you can't call us. Enjoy the rest of your day."


	45. Chapter 45

Late on Hallowe'en evening, a tall man with jet black hair that reaches his waist is found attempting to break into the Minister's office at the Ministry of Magic. When apprehended, the man gives his name as Gareth Stuart but has no identification nor a wand—he attempted to enter the Minister's office using a set of Muggle lock picks—and he stinks of alcohol and carries several vials of an illegal hallucinogenic potion, which he claims he planned to plant in the Minister's office in an attempt to get him arrested, or at least stripped of his position. He's sentenced to five years in Azkaban for trespassing and possession of illegal substances.

* * *

As the first Quidditch match of the season approaches, the tension in the school increases tenfold. Ron Weasley joins the Gryffindor team as Keeper, but with only mild skill, which prompts the Slytherin team to keep up a constant stream of insults and taunts about Ron's abilities. They've also replaced Nick Coleman, their Seeker who finished his schooling the year before, with Ginny Weasley, who's not terrible but, Draco assures the Slytherins confidently, she's not as good as Draco.

Harry misses the match due to serving the fourth of his Saturday detentions and by the time he's let out the match is over. Slytherin won, but Draco's in the Hospital Wing. As Cid tells the story, the Slytherin spectators spend the entire match singing a song Draco came up with to annoy Ron Weasley and put him off his game, then at the end of the match Draco, cocky from the win, taunts Ron, who responds with an unpleasant comment about Lucius. Draco throws a punch and Ron retaliates. George leaps in on the fight as well and only the combined efforts of the Gryffindor Chasers stop Fred from joining in too.

After hearing the story, Harry heads to the Hospital Wing, thinking to check Draco was alright.

"Well, _hello_ ," Draco drawls when he sees him. "My day just got a whole lot better."

Harry goes over to his bed, cheeks slightly pink. Draco notices, but doesn't comment on it.

"Have you come to weep at my bedside and beg me not to die?"

"As if. You got beat up a bit, you're not dying. Madam Pomfrey's already fixed you up by the look of things."

Draco shrugs, smirking. His face shows no signs of having been hit or even so much as scratched lightly and he's sitting on the bed looking perfectly fine and pain free.

"You still came to see me. Clearly you were concerned for my handsome face."

"Clearly I should be going because there's not enough room in this place for anyone else when your big head is in here."

"My head is perfectly proportioned, thank you very much. It's also quite sore."

"Aww, you poor little thing. Did you want me to kiss it better?" he mocks, then looks surprised when Draco grins.

"If you're offering."

His smirk says he clearly doesn't expect Harry to follow through, so Harry does exactly that, and it's Draco's face that turns surprised when Harry leans in and presses his lips to his pale forehead. He pulls back with his cheeks red, but he's smirking. It doesn't take long for Draco to get past his shock.

"My lips are sore too, you know."

"Don't push your luck, Malfoy."

Draco pouts but Harry just shakes his head, laughing.

By the end of dinner, the entire school knows about the new Educational Decree that has given Umbridge the right to overrule other teachers' punishments and that the Weasley boys have been banned from ever playing Quidditch again—all of them, even though Fred hadn't laid a hand on Draco. Harry feels bad for them, but he's more concerned about the new Decree and what it might mean for him, but the rest of the weekend passes and he isn't hauled up to Umbridge's office and expelled for 'sneaking into Hogsmeade', so he assumes enough time has passed that she won't be overruling the punishment already given to him. It does make him reconsider attending the D.A. meetings though. If she ever finds out about those, there's absolutely no chance he'll avoid expulsion.

* * *

When Sirius and Remus leave the hospital after their next visit to James, the healers brace themselves for another violent episode, but it never comes.

* * *

D.A. meetings progress well. Harry can't bring himself to stop attending, whatever the risk. He still insists that Hermione and Neville are the one's running it, but he can't deny that he generally spends most of his time assisting the others and he kind of enjoys it, advising them on proper wand movements and correct pronunciation. He listens to Hermione's lesson plans and reads up on the spells to make sure he's perfectly familiar with them before the meetings, so he can teach it properly even if he can perform the spells half-arsed himself.

* * *

"I want to go."

Sam shuts the door behind her, looking over at James. "Go where?" she asks, moving to the chair.

"I don't know," he admits with a frown. "But I want to leave. I want... I want to be normal. Like before."

"Before when?"

"Before..." He brings his feet up, crossing his legs and staring at his hands, resting in his lap. He sighs, and finishes quietly. "Before Lucius."

* * *

_Well this is dreadfully tedious work._

"You're telling me."

"Excuse me?"

Harry freezes in the middle of writing out another old report card and looks over at Snape, sat behind his own desk marking essays.

"Nothing. Sorry."

Snape frowns but bends his head and returns to his marking. Harry continues writing.

_You really ought to watch that. People might start realising you're not quite right in the head._

'You've been gone for weeks. You surprised me.'

_Yes, well, whatever the Assistant did to us knocked me out for a while._

'What are you talking about?'

There's a brief pause then: _Legilimency, it appears. Presumably that's what the Assistant used on us to obtain the whereabouts of the prophecy, but... odd that it made you seize when your session with daddy dearest didn't._

'How do you know about that?'

_I'm inside your head, moron. I see everything you see. In any case, the Assistant hit me hard. I see he stole the prophecy too, and then lied to Voldemort about it. How very curious._

"Mr Evans, you're meant to be copying reports, not day dreaming."

Harry starts, then realises he hasn't written another word, and glances at Snape. "Sorry, professor."

_So you're no longer dosing yourself to deal with your daddy issues. That is good to see._

'I'll still dose myself to shut you up.'

_No you won't. You've missed me. Don't bother denying it, I can see the truth. You were worried I'd gone for good. You_ wanted _me back._

'Yeah and I'm regretting it immensely.'

The voice just laughs softly.

* * *

Although Sam had hoped to get James to start thinking about leaving the hospital to live a normal life, she's worried about his determination to get out now that the idea's taken him. She's glad he's opening up more in their sessions and spending more time in the day room with the other patients—he even apologises to Dennis—but she's not entirely convinced it's genuine. He hasn't previously done anything even remotely sneaky, but it's her job to analyse patient actions and motives, and James' are questionable.

* * *

Draco's peering over Harry's shoulder in the library for almost five minutes before it finally bothers him.

"Can I help you with something?"

"Yes, actually. Why are you studying runes that I'm pretty sure even the seventh years aren't working on?"

"I have broad interests," he answers without looking up from the runes he's copying out.

"Clearly. You realise you're taking up an entire table?"

"There are others. Go sit somewhere else."

Draco pulls out a chair and sits down. Harry doesn't even glance at him. Draco picks up one of the books, turning a few pages and frowning.

"Seriously, Evans, this is way beyond the Hogwarts curriculum. What are you even looking at Enochian sigils for anyway? No one uses this stuff."

"Personal project, and no one uses any of this stuff; that's why it's called _Ancient_ Runes. Give me that, will you?"

He's learning everything he can about magic suppression runes. He learns that they can be employed in different ways—as with Dumbledore's cuffs, they can be encircled around a part of a person's body, restricting how much magic can leave their body; or, and he suspects this is what happened at the graveyard, they can be etched between two concentric circles and prevent anyone within the circles from using magic entirely, though not prevent magic entering from outside; or they can be spread out and combined with other runes, like on the Assistant's cloak, to suppress the magic of anything on the area of the surface covered with runes.

Fortunately, he also discovers repulsion and inversion runes, which can turn the power of magic suppression back on themselves, rendering them useless. He's thinking of making a cloak like the Assistant's, only with inversion runes so he can protect against people trying to stop him using his magic.

But he also discovers references to demon repelling runes and sigils, and that is something he can't resist researching further, so now he's studying them too, hoping to find something that might protect him from Crowley and the hellhounds when his ten years are up even if he doesn't manage to find a way to break the deal. All the extra studying has also had the added bonus of making Ancient Runes his second best subject after History of Magic.

Draco hands the book over, watching him look between it and another book then scribble something in his notes.

"What are you doing over Christmas?" Draco asks.

"Going home. Why?"

"I just think you'd love the library at the Manor. It's not as big as this, but we've got books Hogwarts would never stock."

Harry says nothing for a while, continuing to write notes from the Enochian text before moving it aside to look at a book filled with Egyptian symbols. "I don't think that'd be exactly a good idea. I doubt your mother wants me in your house."

There's a tense pause. Harry still doesn't look up.

"She didn't know—"

"I know, you told me, and I believe it. But I'm still... I'd be an uncomfortable reminder of what your father did."

"Is this really about my mother or is it about you? I get it if you're uncomfortable being there, but you can just say it instead of trying—"

"Draco," Harry interrupts, looking up for the first time, a slightly exasperated smile on his face, "I spent a night in your bed. You think—"

There's a thud of someone dropping something heavy behind the bookshelf to Harry's right, followed by a loud curse, and then Madam Pince's disapproving voice.

"Really, Professor Snape, there are _children_ about."

Harry stares at his notes, his face turning red. Draco clears his throat. Both of them pretend not to notice Snape as he stalks out from behind the stacks and towards the entrance. There's a minute of silence after he's left, then Draco says, "So. Our Head of House now thinks we're sleeping together."

_Ha! Never mind that—your_ daddy _thinks you're sleeping together!_

"He's not—"

He bites his tongue, hard enough to feel blood fill his mouth. Draco looks at him oddly.

"He's not what?"

"Nothing. It doesn't matter." He stands, closing books and gathering his notes then shoving them into his bag.

"You heading back to Slytherin?"

"No, I've got a... thing. With Hermione and Neville."

Draco doesn't insult them but his lip curls slightly. "I'll see you later then."

_Correct me if I'm wrong_ , drawls the voice as Harry leaves the library, _but I do believe you're having feelings for him._

'He's my friend.'

_But you want him to be more. You've been having some_ very _interesting dreams about him._

Harry says nothing. There's no point in denying it, but he finds the whole situation confusing really. He doesn't think he's attracted to Draco, because he still doesn't want to do anything sexual with him, but he is having, and enjoying, dreams about watching Draco do sexual things with other boys.

* * *

On the last Saturday of November, Hedwig brings Harry a letter from home. He opens it at the breakfast table, reads it through then stands and abruptly leaves, ignoring Cid's surprised curse as he knocks him in his hurry to get up.

Draco finds him in a small niche in the corridor leading down to the dungeons.

"You alright?"

Harry glances up then back down at his letter, still held in both hands.

"That from home?"

"Yeah."

"Everything okay?"

"The healers say James is ready to leave the hospital. He wants to move in with Sirius and Remus... and me."

Draco frowns. "That's expected, isn't it? I mean, he's your dad and he's friends with your godfather and Lupin."

"He's not," Harry murmurs, still staring at the letter.

_What are you doing?_

"Not what?"

"My dad."

"Yes, he's not what?"

"He's not my dad."

Draco stares at him. "He—wha- no, but—" He breaks off. Harry doesn't look up. Draco grabs his arm and drags him down the corridor until they reach the nearest classroom—the Potions dungeon—and pulls him inside, shutting the door behind them then turning to Harry.

"What _exactly_ do you mean by 'he's not my dad'? Do you mean you just don't consider him a dad because he never raised you or do you mean he's not genetically related to you?"

"That."

" _Which?_ "

"He's not genetically related to me. He's not my dad."

"No, that—how can he not be your dad? He's James Potter. You're the Boy Who Lived."

"The Boy Who Lived is a bastard."

Draco shakes his head. "I don't understand."

"My mum had an affair. She cheated. She slept with another man. She—"

"Yes, alright, I get it."

_Why are you telling him this? I know you've been having... feelings... for him, but this is our big, shameful secret. We're not supposed to tell anyone._

"How long have you known?"

"Since the day James was found. The guy Mum slept with told me that day."

"Your real father. Who would be...?"

"A bastard who doesn't give two shits about me."

"Right," Draco says, sounding like he's still struggling to wrap his head around it all. "Because otherwise he'd have raised you."

"He knew," Harry says. "He knew my uncle was hitting me years before he put me in the hospital, but he just left me there."

"You're right, he is a bastard. If you want, I can poison him for you. I'm pretty good at Potions."

_That's not a bad idea._

"Don't tempt me. "This doesn't change things between us, does it?"

Draco shrugs. "Not for the worse."

"What do you mean?"

"Things have always been a little awkward between us because of you being James Potter's son, but if you're not, then they don't have to be anymore. Not so much, at least," he says. "I realise he's still your step-father and if my father hadn't... well, you probably wouldn't have ever had to worry about your real father taking you in."

_He's right about that. You know James likely only said he'd have given you away because of Lucius' brainwashing. Without it, you might have grown up in a nice loving home with a not so crazy step-daddy. I wonder what that would have done for_ your _sanity._

"You know you can't tell anyone."

Draco snorts. "Yeah, I figured that much. Who else knows?"

"No one."

"No one?" he repeats, raising an eyebrow.

"Well, Sirius and Remus and James, obviously. Also Dumbledore. But none of my friends, except you now."

"Why?"

Harry frowns at him. "Why what?"

"Why me? You've been friends with Granger, Longbottom, Lyle, Villiers—all of them for years, but not me."

"You never told anyone who I was," Harry answers honestly. "You didn't try to use it against me, either. When everyone else thought I was petrifying students, you believed it wasn't me, and last year you believed me when I said I didn't put my name in the Goblet of Fire. We might not have been friends, but you've still had more faith in me than most people."

"Can I kiss you?"

"Wha- uh... I mean... you want to?"

"After what you just said? Yes, I dearly want to kiss you."

"Okay."

Draco lips press against Harry's, firm and more insistent than when he'd kissed him in the summer, and Harry, expecting it this time, leans into it, bringing his hands up to tentatively rest on Draco's hips, not entirely sure if that's what he's supposed to do with his hands, but Draco doesn't stop him. Draco's own hands cup Harry's face, tilting his head slightly, then one hand moves across his head, fingers combing through dark hair until his hand settles against the back of his skull, while the other drops to Harry's shoulder, sliding down his arm then round his back to rest against the small of his back, gently pulling him closer.

Draco breaks it, pulling away then leaning in to kiss him again, softer this time, briefly. Harry stares at him, hyper aware of the hands still pressed to his back and tangled in his hair, and the warmth coming from Draco's body and how he absolutely doesn't want to move even a millimetre because the voice in his head is silent and he doesn't want to risk making it speak and ruining the moment.

"There's a butterfly on your shoulder," Draco murmurs.

"Is there?"

"Yes. It's blue."

"They usually are."

Draco draws back a little, raising an eyebrow. "Do you always get butterflies on your shoulders when you kiss people?"

"No. I mean, yes. Maybe. You're the only person I've ever kissed. I just meant, when I conjure butterflies they're nearly always blue."

"And you felt the need to conjure one now?"

"I didn't mean to. I do accidental magic a lot. I blow things up when I'm angry."

"And conjure butterflies when you're happy?"

"I like butterflies."

Draco opens his mouth to say something, then his eyes flicker and go wide. "It was you!"

"What was me?"

"At the World Cup when all those butterflies appeared in the Top Box!"

"Oh. Yes. It was."

"Then you can make them vanish?"

Harry turns his head slightly, dragging his gaze away from Draco's face to glance at the butterfly sat sedately on his right shoulder, and it vanishes.

"I'm starting to think I hardly know you, Evans. How many more times are you going to surprise me?"

"Plenty, I'm sure."

"I hope you keep to that," he says, smirking. "I'll be dreadfully disappointed if you don't."

In place of an answer, Harry kisses him, a little too eager and making their noses bump as a result. He doesn't let it stop him, adjusting and pressing their mouths together, leaning closer when Draco's arm tightens around him, feeling Draco's chest pressed to his, his mouth opening slightly and—

The classroom door opens. Snape freezes in mid step, staring at them as they jump apart. There's a butterfly in Draco's hair and a few more fluttering in the air around them. Snape turns on his heel, stalks out the room and slams the door shut behind him.

"That was weird," Draco comments as Harry vanishes the butterflies. "Normally he just scowls and tells us to get out."

_I may be able to handle you having a relationship with him if you continue to traumatise your daddy like that,_ the voice says delightedly and Harry bites back an annoyed sigh. _Can you imagine his face if he caught you getting buggered? He might actually have a heart attack from the shock._

"You make out with people a lot in here?"

"I just meant classrooms in general."

"Oh. Are you, um..."

"What?"

"Nothing. It doesn't matter."

"Tell me."

"No, I don't—it's nothing. Really."

Draco considers him. "You're wondering if I'm going to keep making out with people in classrooms."

"No. That wasn't—"

"I will."

"Oh," Harry says in a small voice.

"Assuming you don't mind, that is. We can always keep it to the dorms if you prefer, but there's a much higher risk of intrusion and Theo trying to spy on us."

Harry turns red despite, or perhaps because, most of his wet dreams involve him spying on other people.

"Assuming again," Draco says with forced lightness, "that you want to make out with me."

"I do," he says quickly. Draco's entire face lights up with a smile and Harry can't help grinning back.


	46. Chapter 46

Harry procrastinates leaving for detention and ends up arriving five minutes late. Snape says nothing about catching him and Draco or his tardiness, just gestures to the table holding the boxes of report cards. Harry sits down and gets to work.

_As amusing as it is to imagine your daddy's reaction if he caught you getting buggered, you do realise that's a slight problem with your decision to have a relationship with Draco, don't you? He'll be expecting that, not to mention all the other nasty things Cid likes to talk about and which you have absolutely no interest in doing with him. Even in your dreams you never do anything with him. You just watch. You might have enjoyed kissing him earlier, but you weren't aroused. You didn't want to do anything more than that and you still don't._

He spends the entire detention thinking about Draco and completely forgets about the letter from home until he goes to leave and Snape calls him back, holding the letter out and saying it fell from his pocket. Harry reads it again as he heads back to Slytherin. Sirius said James had requested to live with them, and Sirius and Lupin would like him to, but that Harry's opinion matters as well and if he said no they would accept that.

He heads straight to his dorm when he gets back to Slytherin. Only Orion Devaux is in there, but as usual they ignore each other. Harry flops onto his bed with a sigh, staring at the canopy above his bed. He doesn't know if he wants James to move in with them or not. All he knows of the man is what he saw during the brief visit in the summer and that isn't someone that he really wants to live with, but he knows that's not all there is to James, and Sirius and Lupin say he's a lot better and mention that they won't make a final decision until Harry visits James again to see for himself.

He jumps when the door crashes open and Cid comes in, instantly fixing his gaze on Harry and strutting over to his bed with a wolfish grin. Tyler follows him in more sedately, going over to his own bed and picking up his cat, Aurora.

"So you finally did it," Cid says.

"Did what?"

"Fucked Malfoy."

Harry sits up, gaping. "I did not—" he starts loudly, then lowers his voice. "I did not fuck him!"

'And you can shut up,' he says to the voice, which is snickering at him.

"What _did_ you do with him? Because Tyler says Malfoy just turned him down claiming that you two were going out, and Ed Coleman told me he heard you two talking in the library a week ago and you claimed you'd slept in Malfoy's bed. So really, all the evidence suggests you're fucking him."

"That's wasn't—I never fucked him. We just shared a bed. It was the summer and—"

"Wait, you were at his _house_?" Tyler interrupts, and Aurora meows in protest as he stops scratching her ears. "This summer?"

"It was only one night."

"The Malfoy family really has gone to the dogs," Orion sneers from his own bed. The three of them look at him. He's leant back against the headboard and doesn't look away from the paperback book held in one hand as he speaks. "They used to be a respectable family, now look at them: patriarch in prison, getting divorced, and the only heir sleeping with halfie boys. It's such a shame to see a family like that fall apart so easily."

He turns the page of his book, acting as though he hasn't spoken to them at all.

"Dare you to say that to his face," Cid says. Orion ignores him. "Yeah, I thought so. You know he's still a whole lot better than you, Devaux. People around here actually respect the Malfoy name, even with Mr Malfoy in prison. I don't see anyone gossiping about the Devaux family."

Orion shoots him a filthy look. "My family is respectable enough that no one needs to gossip about them. When they discuss us, it's only to comment on how perfect we are. At least I have a family name people know. No one's heard of _yours_."

"They might not know Villiers, but they certainly know Swift."

"Irrelevant. You're not related to Dylan Swift by blood."

"Nope, but he has a daughter he loves more than life itself, and that daughter happens to think the sun shines out of her big brother's backside. All she'd have to do is smile sweetly at her daddy and he'd do anything for her, even name his step-child heir to the family fortune."

"So, you _are_ going out with him, right?" Tyler asks Harry, who'd prefer they keep arguing with Orion.

"Yeah, I guess."

"You guess? He turned me down and he never turns me down. It seems pretty serious to me."

Harry shrugs, fiddling with his letter. "We kissed. Earlier, in the Potions dungeon."

"Seriously? Of all the places in school to have a snog and you choose the Potions dungeon?"

"It's not like I planned it! It just sort of happened. We were talking and then he said he wanted to kiss me and we did."

Tyler shrugs. "Sounds about right."

"'Sounds about right'?" Cid says disbelievingly. "What happened to spontaneous kissing? Who the fuck asks permission?"

"Malfoy does. He asks before he does anything, or at least warns you first. It's kind of annoying when you just want him to get on with it, but he insists. I asked him about it once; he said his mother made a huge deal about consent issues and communication when she explained the birds and bees."

Cid sniggers. "He got that talk from his mum?"

"Apparently."

"Dad tried giving it to me, but I already knew about it all from these guys in the village. I'd listen in on them talk but they caught me once and told me all about it. Dad didn't even ask; he was just glad he didn't have to do it. What about you?" he says to Harry. "Who'd you get the talk from? Your godfather?"

"No one. I just read in books—" ("What a surprise," Tyler mutters.) "—and listened to you guys."

"You do know how to, right? To fuck a guy and stuff?" Cid says. "Because if not you might want to read up on it before you get much further with Malfoy."

_Told you_ , singsongs the voice in his head.

* * *

Sam's still not completely convinced about James' motives, but he's been at the hospital five months and as long as he continues like this she's got no real reason to keep him. Even his continued nightmares and persistent restlessness aren't enough to hold him and she thinks it's possible that being confined to the hospital is actually making them worse.

From what she knows of Sirius Black, she doesn't think he's an ideal housemate for someone in James' situation; she doesn't like him moving in with a werewolf either, and she has mixed feelings about him living with the illegitimate child his wife had with his childhood enemy, but James is adamant that he isn't moving into any kind of supported housing with strangers and there's no one else that the man can live with. So she meets with Sirius and Lupin and has a lengthy discussion about what to expect when James leaves the hospital and the things they'll need to do to support him.

She also mentions the idea of seeing a psychiatrist themselves. She gave them the name of a colleague when James was first found, but she knows they haven't contacted him and as far as she knows Sirius never received any sort of counselling for his prison sentence. She pushes the idea a little harder this time, making a point of how James moving in will be difficult for everyone and it'll only be detrimental to his recovery if they don't properly deal with the stress of the situation.

* * *

"You avoiding me?"

"No."

_Liar_.

"So you're not hidden in the furthest corner of the library studying ridiculously ancient runes—again—on a Sunday afternoon because you're embarrassed by what happened yesterday?"

"No."

"And you're not refusing to look at me because you've changed your mind about wanting to go out with me but don't have the nerve to tell me so?"

Harry says nothing. Draco nods.

"Evans, do you remember what I said in the summer, after the first time I kissed you?"

"You said lots of stuff."

"The bit about not being a pathetic Hufflepuff who'll cry and write bad poetry if you turn me down."

"Yes."

Draco sighs. He reaches over and takes the book from Harry's hands then grabs his chin, lifting his head and staring at him until Harry reluctantly meets his gaze. "Evans, I may not be a pathetic Hufflepuff but I do have my dignity and I'm not going to be messed about. I like you—a lot. I want to go out with you. If you don't want to, fine, but don't play with me. So I'm going to ask you one last time, and if you say no, it's fine, I accept it. But I want a straight answer: do you want to go out with me?"

"It's not—"

"Yes or no, Evans."

"It's not that simple!"

Draco drops his hand. "How is it not that simple? Either you like me or you don't. What's complicated about it?"

"Because I don't—I like you, I do, and I'm not embarrassed by yesterday. I mean, except for the bit with Snape, but that's... anyway, it's just I don't..."

"You don't what?"

Harry lets out a frustrated sigh and gets up, folding his arms over his chest as he turns away from Draco, moving to the window and looking down onto the grounds at a group of first years having a snowball fight. He doesn't say anything for a while, but Draco remains equally silent, apparently content to wait him out, and eventually Harry sighs again, leans his head against the glass, and mutters, "I don't want to have sex."

He's got his magical eye on Draco, so he sees the surprise cross his face then the smile that follows and the quiet laughter. A sudden anger rushes through him and several shelves of books start rattling dangerously. Harry grits his teeth, breathing hard and forcing himself to calm down before he causes any damage.

"Is that really what this is about? Sex?"

"Don't mock me," he snarls.

"I'm not mocking you, Evans." He stands, moving around the table to come and stand on the other side of the window. Harry glares at the glass. "You realise there's more to relationships than sex, don't you?"

"I'm not stupid," he snaps.

"You're acting stupid. If you've got some other reason not to go out with me, I'd love to hear it, but not wanting sex isn't enough. You said you like me, so go out with me."

"Why? You're going to want sex and... blow jobs and... and all that other stuff, but I don't and I probably never will so you'll just end up hating me because I won't give you what you want, so we might as well just not go out and stay friends."

"You enjoyed yesterday, right? I mean, you were conjuring butterflies and you said that means you're happy, so you liked kissing me."

"Yeah, but... I mean, kissing is... it's not..."

"It's not sexual."

Harry nods.

"Okay, so we keep things non-sexual."

Harry glances at him then away again.

"I'm being serious, Evans. I'm willing to try a non-sexual relationship. Cuddling and innocent kisses only."

"And if that doesn't work? If you want more?"

"Then I... will... figure it out. Don't look at me like that," he adds when Harry glances at him sceptically. "We like each other and we want to go out, we've established that. Surely the decision to ignore my sexual desire is mine, not yours?"

_This boy really does have it bad for you, doesn't he? Willing to give up sex just like that... what on earth does he see in you, I wonder._

"I just don't want you to hate me."

"I won't. Not for this anyway. I'm going into this fully informed of the boundaries; it's not like you're leading me on with false expectations."

"You'll hate me for something else?"

"Well if you turn into a clingy, obsessive, controlling arsehole, yeah, I'm gong to have some issues with you."

Harry smiles at that.

"So, we're going out?"

"One more condition."

Draco sighs. "You'd better be worth the effort, Evans. What is it?"

"Stop calling me Evans."

Draco blinks, surprised, clearly expecting something more than that, then a smile spreads across his face. "What would you prefer?" he drawls, stepping closer and sliding his hand across Harry's hip. "Darling? Sweetie? My foxy little thing?"

"Shut up," Harry says, poking a finger into his side and grinning. "You can call me Harry."

"The rest of your friends call you Harry."

"Funnily enough I think that _might_ be because it's my name. Just possibly."

"How about pet? Dearie? Sweet cheeks? Cutie-"

Harry kisses him, breaking him off in mid-word. "Forget it. Just stick with Evans."

"Make up your mind."

"I'm not having you call me 'cutie-pie' or any other ridiculous names. If you really object to using my name that much, I'd prefer Evans to 'dearie' or 'pet'. That makes me sound like your cat or something."

Draco chuckles. "I'm sure you'd make an adorable little cat," he says, and kisses him before Harry can object.

_You two are disgusting,_ the voice sneers, but Harry ignores it because he honestly doesn't care what it thinks.

* * *

"You look happy," Hermione remarks to Harry when she arrives at the Room of Requirement for their D.A. meeting two days later. "Does that mean the rumours are true? You're dating Malfoy?"

"Yes," Harry says with a sheepish grin. "I know you don't approve, but I like him, Hermione."

Hermione purses her lips, eying him. "If he hurts you—"

"You'll hex him so badly his own mother won't recognise him, I know."

"I'll hex him so badly he won't recognise himself, and then some more. Just... be careful, won't you?"

"You know I can look after myself, Hermione."

"I can still worry about you."

* * *

After a week thinking about it, Harry eventually writes home and says he's okay with the idea of James moving in with them. He is, mostly. He'll be more sure when he's visited James and seen for himself that he's changed.

Term ends two weeks later. Draco kisses him goodbye on the train and Harry steps onto the platform with a silly grin on his face that Sirius immediately notices.

"Who's the lucky girl?"

Harry flushes. "It's a boy," he admits.

"Anyone I know?"

"No," he lies, because he's pretty sure Sirius won't approve of him going out with Draco. "Just someone in the year above me. How are we getting home?"

Sirius eyes him. "Apparating. What house are they in?"

"None of your business."

"You're not going to tell me anything? Why the secrecy, kid?"

Harry shrugs. "It's mine."

Sirius smiles fondly. "Alright. He gives you any trouble though, you give me a call on the mirror and I'll come right up there and hex the snot out of him for you."

Harry rolls his eyes. He notices the bracelet about Sirius' wrist then. It's a plain white-gold band, half a centimetre wide, with a millimetre of something glowing red running through the centre, looking almost like thin strands of thread. "Did Remus give you that?"

"No, that's a tracking bracelet I had made."

"Tracking who?"

"You. Snape wanted his pendant back and I liked the idea, but I wasn't going to copy him completely."

Harry scowls. "Why does everyone insist on tracking me?"

"Because you have a terrible habit of disappearing."

"You know that won't track me if I make myself invisible."

"I do, but it will track you if you happen to get kidnapped."

"Do you expect me to get kidnapped?"

Sirius smiles, slinging an arm around his shoulders and pulling Harry against his side in a brief hug. "I've learnt not to expect anything but surprises from you."

* * *

_Your step-daddy isn't looking so hot_.

Harry has to agree with that. James is still pale with heavy shadows under his eyes and a gaunt look to his face. Harry thinks he actually looks worse than when he saw him before. But James greets him, Sirius, and Lupin with a small, tired smile instead of the distrustful glare he levelled at Harry last time, and they sit down with him.

"I want to apologise, Harry," James begins. "I'm sorry for calling you a bastard and Lily a Mudblood. I shouldn't have said those things."

"I know it's not really your fault."

James shakes his head. "I knew what I was saying. I knew it was hateful and I shouldn't have said it, and I'm sorry that I did. I mean that," he adds, correctly guessing Harry's scepticism even though he says nothing. "You said last time that I loved Lily and I told you I didn't, but that's not true. I did love her, and I loved you too, when you were a baby. You might not be mine, but you're still Lily's son and I'd like to get to know you."

"Did you mean it when you said you'd have given me to Snape?"

James doesn't answer immediately. He keeps fidgeting, fingers tapping against his thigh then against the arm of his chair then moving to fiddle with a loose thread in his robes. Harry wonders if he's restless because of them, because he's still crazy and only pretending otherwise, or just because that's that type of person he is.

"I'm not going to lie to you," James says eventually. "I don't know what I'd have done. I only found out Snape was your father the night the Dark Lord attacked Godric's Hollow and I never had time to really think it over before Lucius took me, but I know that I loved you back then and I like to think that even though I hate Snape, I'd have looked after you like you were my own anyway because you're Lily's boy and she'd have wanted me to."


	47. Chapter 47

The Assistant thinks Azkaban is a miserable place to spend Christmas. It's a miserable place in general, but the Dementors make the ache from his newly transferred Bond burn unpleasantly. He still hasn't the faintest idea who his new Master is but he knows they're still as far away from him now as they were when he was in the Riddle House. They're in London, of that he's sure, because he felt the Bond easing when he broke into the Ministry; it took huge amounts of effort to resist the desire to follow the tug in his chest all the way to his new Master and get some relief from the burn, but Voldemort's orders were clear and he 's bound to obey them. So between that, the torrent of unpleasant memories the Dementors force him to relive, and the effort of keeping his long-haired disguise in place when his powers are being constantly drained, he decides that this Christmas definitely ranks as the worst day he's lived in his current timeline.

* * *

Harry's woken on Christmas morning by Padfoot jumping on his bed and licking his face. He pushes the dog off, laughing, and yawns as he follows him downstairs. Beneath the heavily decorated Christmas tree in the living room is a pile of presents and Lupin is already seated on the sofa, dressing gown over his pyjamas and a steaming mug of coffee held in both hands. There are two more mugs on the coffee table, one with coffee, the other with hot chocolate. Harry takes the latter then, with a cheeky smirk, flicks his wrist and transfigures the other mug into a dog bowl. The coffee sloshes slightly but doesn't spill and he levitates it off the table and down to the floor in front of Padfoot, who looks at him balefully. Harry stares back innocently. Lupin chuckles into his own mug then grunts when Padfoot thumps his tail against his leg.

"I did tell you not to wake him up as Padfoot," Lupin says. Padfoot barks once and wags his tail, clearly deciding he considers it worth it, and bends his head to the bowl, lapping up the coffee.

Harry, Sirius, and Lupin visit James that day. They take him a new robe as a gift from the three of them. It's impersonal but practical, and they don't known what else to get. He gives them hand-made Christmas cards.

"They're pretty crap," he says, "but I'm not allowed out and I wouldn't know what to get you for gifts anyway. They like us doing artsy stuff and pretty much insisted we make cards. Anyway you should probably just throw them out."

Sirius looks like he'd gladly do that and only a sharp look from Remus makes him mutter a thanks.

Sam joins them half an hour later, wishing them a Merry Christmas and introducing herself to Harry. The voice in his head falls abruptly silent, almost as if it's hiding from her.

"I'm here to discuss James' discharge. If everyone agrees, I think after the New Year will be a good a time as any."

"The sooner the better if you ask me," James says, but his eyes flick nervously between his friends and Harry.

"That's fine for us," Remus confirms, and James gives a small, relieved smile.

"I'm glad to hear it. Now, given that you, Harry, spend much of the year at Hogwarts, I think it would be easiest if James left here after you've returned for the new term. It'll be easier to settle in with fewer people and allow him the chance to get used to his new environment before any major changes occur, as the leaving of one of his housemates would be."

"Okay. I go back on twelfth."

Sam nods. "Then is the thirteenth fine for you both?" she asks Sirius and Lupin, who glance at each other before nodding their agreement.

'You're scared of the psychiatrist,' Harry thinks when Sam's left and they're getting ready to leave.

_I'm a voice in your head; I don't feel fear._

'Liar. You're afraid of being around her because you think I might slip up and speak to you out loud, and that she'd figure you out.'

_Once again, I am a voice inside your head; I do not feel fear. But perhaps you're right that I do not want to be discovered... it's a sentiment you hold too. Were they to discover me, you would be changing places with your dearest step-daddy. Who knows, they might even give you his room._

As they're heading back down to the main reception, Harry's surprised to bump into Neville and his grandmother on the staircase. Neville's expression is less surprised and more horribly startled, like he desperately wishes they'd never seen each other.

"Hey, Neville. What're you doing here? You okay?"

Neville nods but he doesn't look okay. He won't meet Harry's gaze and he's face has turned an odd sort of reddish-purple.

"You must be Harry Evans," Neville's grandmother says, holding out a hand for him to shake. She's a formidable-looking old witch and Harry suddenly understands why Neville's nervous so much. "Neville speaks most highly of you."

"Oh. Um, thank you."

As Mrs Longbottom turns to Sirius and Lupin, Harry edges closer to Neville. "You sure you're okay? You don't look so great."

Instead of answering, Neville asks, still without looking at him, "Did you have another bad seizure?"

"No, we're not here because of me for once. We were just visiting James."

Neville looks at him then, almost surprised, and some of the colour fades from his face. He opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again, looks down at his trainers, back up, and then blurts, "I'm visiting my parents too."

"I didn't know they were sick," Harry says, surprised.

"What's this?" says Mrs. Longbottom sharply. "Haven't you told your friends about your parents, Neville?"

Neville stares at his trainers and shakes his head.

_My, my, this is interesting. I had wondered why he lived with his grandmother. Why did you never ask?_

"Well, it's nothing to be ashamed of!" Mrs. Longbottom says angrily. "You should be _proud_ , Neville, _proud!_ They didn't give their health and their sanity so their only son would be ashamed of them, you know!"

_Their sanity? Well look at that—you're not the only one with crazy parental figures._

"I'm not ashamed," says Neville very faintly. Before Mrs Longbottom can say anything else, Lupin steps forward.

"Mrs Longbottom, would you care to join Sirius and me in the cafe for a cup of tea?"

Mrs Longbottom looks startled at the offer. Sirius quickly nods.

"I think tea's a great idea. You two kids can catch up in a bit. You know where the cafe is, don't you?"

Harry nods, glancing between the three adults and Neville, who's still staring at the floor, and realises that they all know something he doesn't. Mrs Longbottom purses her lips as she stares at Neville, but nods to Lupin and the three adults head off.

"What's wrong with your parents?" Harry asks gently.

Neville takes a deep breath, lets it out shakily, and answers quietly, "Death Eaters tortured them into insanity when I was a baby. They were Aurors and the Death Eaters thought, after you defeated You Know Who, that my parents knew where he was. They tortured them to try and make them talk."

"I'm sorry," Harry says, knowing it's inadequate and useless but not knowing what else he can or should say. Growing up believing himself an orphan was horrible, but he can't imagine how terrible it would be to grow up with your parents alive but insane, locked in a hospital for the rest of their lives.

"Don't tell Hermione," Neville says, still quiet, his tone not quite pleading but close.

"I won't," he promises. "I won't tell anyone."

"How's your dad?" Neville asks, clearly wanting to change the topic of conversation. Harry looks away, feeling a spark of guilt about lying to Neville after what he's just shared with him.

"It's okay," Neville adds, noticing his expression. "Never mind. We should go—"

"He's not—James isn't... he's not my dad."

"What do you mean?"

"My mum had an affair," he says, glancing at him then looking away again. "I found out the day after the third Triwizard task. It's the real reason I ran away. Remus told me that James was alive and then they told me he's not really my dad and I didn't know how to handle it."

"Do you know who your real dad is?"

Harry nods reluctantly. "He's a bastard. He didn't want me. He doesn't care, so I don't care about him. James is getting out of hospital after the New Year. He's moving in with us."

Neville nods, as unsure about how to react to this as Harry had been to Neville's revelation.

"Don't tell Hermione?" Harry asks and Neville gives a small smile.

"I won't."

* * *

Narcissa's divorce is finalised a week after the new year. As the sole care giver to Draco and given Lucius' life sentence, the courts award her the vast majority of the Malfoy family fortune, including the deeds to Malfoy Manor. Later that day, Draco finds her in the lounge, drunk on elf wine and weeping pitifully.

* * *

Harry spends most of the first evening back at Hogwarts sat on the sofa beside Draco, reading while Draco works on homework he didn't finish over the holiday. When he gets up a little after midnight to go to bed, Draco grabs his wrist and tugs him back down.

"Stay with me."

He sits without argument, opening the book again. Half an hour later, when the last student leaves the common room, Draco tosses down his quill, snatches Harry's book from him and drops it to the floor with enough carelessness to make Harry wince, and wraps his arms around Harry's waist, manoeuvring them until they're lying down, Harry pinned to the sofa by Draco's weight, Draco's head tucked into the crook of his neck, one leg tucked between both of Harry's, the other almost falling off the sofa which really isn't big enough for them.

"You okay?" Harry asks quietly, wrapping his arms around the other boy.

"My parents' divorce was finalised last week," Draco answers, voice muffled against Harry's neck.

"Oh."

"Mother took it pretty hard. She misses Father."

"What about you?"

Draco says nothing, just clings tighter.

* * *

Sam's not surprised when James changes his mind on the morning of the thirteenth, saying he's not ready to leave and wants to stay in the hospital. She spends an hour talking it through with him, mentioning all the things he'll miss out on if he stays, reminding him that they'll still have weekly sessions, and pointing out that no matter how much longer he remains, leaving the hospital won't get any easier.

Sirius is pacing when James and Sam eventually floo into the living room. He stops and grins at them as they wipe soot from their robes, and Lupin gets up from the couch to greet them and show them up to the third bedroom that's now James'.

Once he's settled in and had another moment of panic about wanting to get back to the hospital, Sam nods to Sirius, who draws James' wand from his pocket and hands it over with a grin.

"They found it in Malfoy's house. About time you had it back, Prongs."

James takes it hesitantly. A wand is something he's only been allowed to use on rare occasions in the past decade, given under Lucius' watchful gaze and permitted to cast only whatever new dark spell Lucius felt he needed to know. He only ever turned it on Lucius twice, vain attempts to overpower him that were easily stopped and viciously punished.

Now that he's holding it with the knowledge it won't be taken from him again, he wants to use it but all he can remember are those dark curses, as though every other spell he's ever learnt has been wiped from his memory. He knows he mustn't use them—knows it even if there's a tiny piece of him that whispers _to hell with that, Master taught you them so they're the only spells you_ should _use_ —so he ignores the desire to use magic, forces a smile onto his face, and tucks the wand into his pocket.

"Thanks."

* * *

Harry's kept his Occlumency shields up constantly ever since he learnt it, as Snape instructs, but that evening his scar itches for the first time since the start of October and he feels a stab of emotion that's not his. He closes his eyes, shuts his mind down and forces it out. He doesn't want to know what Voldemort's feeling, doesn't want him inside his head.

* * *

The Assistant breathes a sigh of relief when he finds a note under his evening bowl of... whatever the hell it is they get fed... which reads simply, _Tonight_. He is more than ready to get out of this place.

He struggles, at first, to focus on a happy memory and produce a Patronus against the Dementors when the time comes, but eventually a glowing silver panther stalks the halls of Azkaban, easing the soul-sucking cold from the prisoners. He considers it briefly, the only representation he has of his Master. His Patronus always represents his Master; no matter how deeply he loves another person or how much he hates his Master, his Patronus always reflects them.

As ordered, he leaves the Dementors to Voldemort and moves through the prison, releasing his fellow Death Eaters from their cells. They crowd him, keeping close to the soothing glow of the Patronus as they head for the exit.

When they've returned to the Riddle House, the Assistant only half listens to Voldemort talk, praising the loyalty of the Death Eaters who served their time for him. They're dismissed with orders to rest and recover, all except Lucius and the Assistant.

"You have served me well, Assistant. This almost makes up for your mistake in October."

"I will continue to do whatever you need, my lord," he murmurs. "I wish to more than make up for my failure."

"I fully expect you will. You may leave us."

The Assistant hesitates. "My lord, I... may I beg of you, a slice of your graciousness... please allow me reprieve from the house. Forty-eight hours, that is all I ask."

"For?" Voldemort says coldly, dangerously.

The Assistant has to force a cheeky grin, has to falsify the over-confident manner that's earned him so many _Crucios_. "To indulge my baser desires, my lord. You know how I am and months have passed without even the briefest touch of another person's flesh. Even Bellatrix is starting to look appealing, crazy and prison starved as she is."

Voldemort turns away with a sneer. "You may take twenty-four hours."

* * *

Preston Yaxley wakes when his bedroom door opens, snatching his wand from under his pillow and fixing it on the blond-haired figure in simple black robes. The figure stands in the doorway, a shadow in the dark room, but Yaxley doesn't need to see his face to know who it is. He can feel it.

The Assistant sighs. "Well, I suppose it could be someone worse."

"What are you doing here?"

"You know why I'm here," the Assistant replies, moving into the room and closing the door behind him, heading straight over to the bed.

"The Dark Lord forbid you from knowing your master."

"The Dark Lord has not spent two months in Azkaban whilst enduring the ache of a fresh Bond," the Assistant replies, standing over him. "You've suffered it too, if not as badly as me."

Yaxley says nothing.

"Will you send me away?"

Again, Yaxley says nothing, but he slides his wand back under his pillow.

The Assistant lifts the covers but hardly glances at the naked form underneath before draping himself across Yaxley. Yaxley grunts slightly at the sudden weight but says nothing, instead rolling him off and turning on his side, letting the Assistant press against his front, one arm slung over Yaxley's side, hand splaying against his back, head tucked under Yaxley's chin. He forces a leg between Yaxley's until the taller man slings one leg over the Assistant's, tangling them together. The Assistant presses his face to the bare chest, inhaling deeply, trembling slightly as the ache he's felt for so long is finally eased slightly. Twenty four hours is not nearly enough to properly satisfy him, not even if Yaxley spent every minute of it lavishing him with intimate attention, but he will take what he can get, and both of them are soundly asleep within minutes.

* * *

Tonks and Kingsley bring the news to the Marauders' home. James spends the rest of the night curled on the sofa with Lupin on one side of him and Padfoot of the other, head in James' lap. Periodically he'll demand they check that the windows and doors are locked and that the various protective enchantments on the house are still in place. Neither Lupin or Sirius argue with him, even when it's five o'clock in the morning and they've all had a grand total of four hours sleep between them. James doesn't tell them that he's less scared of Lucius turning up at the house than he is of his own desire to go searching for the man.

The Ministry are slightly baffled as to why, alongside eleven of Lord Voldemort's most loyal Death Eaters, the breakout includes the drunk but ultimately unremarkable wizard who attempted to break into the Minister's office on Hallowe'en. Indeed, the Aurors who arrested him considered him a fool and a joke; he did, after all, attempt to break in with nothing but a set of Muggle lock picks. He was certainly nothing that anyone would have thought worthy of the attention of seasoned murderers.

But they're extremely interested in the reports from the remaining prisoners who claim that a blond haired man assisted in the break out, moving through the prison with a silver panther at his side. His description matches that of the man who helped Peter Pettigrew escape Auror custody two years ago. Minister Fudge, still refusing to believe that Voldemort's back even now, is more than eager to pin the blame for the breakout on this mysterious 'Assistant'.

_We could hunt them down. While the Ministry continues to refuse to accept Voldemort's return, his army is growing. We could find them, kill them all. We could attack Voldemort himself. Who cares what Dumbledore says? He does not know our power; we can best whatever magic Voldemort has cast upon himself. You beat him when you were only a baby and wielding but a fraction of the power you have now. He cannot hope to survive us._

Harry ignores the voice, no matter how tempting its suggestions might be. Draco hasn't said a word since reading the paper. He shakes his head once when Harry tries talking to him and ignores everyone else completely. The entire Slytherin table is tense, though the rest of the school is its usual bustle of energy, talking of Quidditch and homework and gossip, most of them not yet aware of the danger that now walks free, not having read the paper yet. Harry glances over at the Gryffindor table and catches Hermione's gaze, her tense expression saying she's seen the story. At the teachers' table Dumbledore and McGonagall are deep in conversation, faces grave, and being malevolently glared at by Umbridge every so often.

The whispers and pointing that followed Harry at the start of the year renew themselves with vigour, but it's no longer as hostile as before. The _Daily Prophet_ claims that the Assistant is to blame for the breakout, but the idea of an anonymous man no one's ever heard of breaking twelve people out of Azkaban is a stretch of the imagination. Harry doesn't doubt for a second that it's true, at least partially; Voldemort would certainly use him to help with the breakout, but people are unsatisfied with the story and beginning to consider other possibilities—including Voldemort.

At the next D.A. meeting, a few of them tell Harry they believe him now. All of them work harder. Neville has a grimly determined expression on his face and works harder than anyone. He doesn't mention the unexpected meeting they had in Saint Mungo's and Harry follows his lead, keeping quiet as well.

Hermione asks Harry to stay behind when it's over. When everyone else has left, including Neville, they sit on some of the cushions they use when practising Stunning Spells, and Hermione says, "Harry, I think you ought to do an interview about what happened when Voldemort came back."

_Is she serious?_

"I've been thinking about it and I really think it'd help you. People would know what really happened that night and after all those Death Eaters escaped, they'd be more willing to believe it."

"No, they'd be more willing to believe I'm crazy."

_Well you are._

"They wouldn't. Right now all they have is second hand stories, Dumbledore's version of what happened, which to be honest really isn't much. All he says is Voldemort's back and it happened at the end of the Triwizard tournament. If people really know what happened—"

"People?" he repeats, getting up and stalking away. "Is that really what this is about? Or is it _you_ who wants to know what happened?"

"Well of course I do, but I mean it, Harry. Knowing what happened—"

"Won't help _anyone_ , least of all me. If they knew what happened they'd only be more certain I'm crazy."

"Why?"

"Because—!"

_Because you are._

He turns back to look at her. "You want to know what happened that night? You really want to know?"

She worries at her lip, but nods, and he sits down and tells her the same confused, half-true story he'd related to Dumbledore and Sirius, missing details under the guise of post-seizure delirium and concussion from the head injury obtained during the Cruciatus.

"Now do you see? My story won't make anything clear; it'll only generate more confusion and more questions, and further the belief that I'm crazy."

Instead of responding, she throws herself forward and wraps her arms around his neck, so fast that she knocks him back and they end up laying on the floor, Hermione on top of him and still with her arms around his neck.

"I'm sorry you had to go through that," she says when they've sat back up. "It must have been horrible."

"But you get it now, right? Why I can't tell anyone?"

She sighs and nods. "I do, you're right. Even if you remembered things more clearly, this Assistant man makes things so complicated."

He never said anything about breaking into the Ministry, but he told her and Neville about the Assistant being a Death Eater, just so they know if they ever came face to face with him.

"It'd certainly be a lot easier if he decided which side he's really on," Harry agrees.


	48. Chapter 48

The Assistant memory charms Yaxley at the end of his twenty-four hours, all of which they spend together, barely leaving the bed after the Assistant convinces him to call in sick to work. There's no sex—Yaxley makes it clear he has no interest in that, not with him at least—but they need the closeness to each other. The Assistant doesn't want to leave at the end of it, but he knows better than to disobey Voldemort so boldly, especially when he's not been completely forgiven for the fiasco with the prophecy.

He's called to the sitting room as soon as he gets into the house and knows instantly that Voldemort's mood is not to be tested.

"Lucius tells me that you would be aware if your Bond were transferred to a new Master," Voldemort starts, ignoring the Assistant's greeting.

"I am," the Assistant answers slowly, aware that there's no point feigning ignorance.

"Yet you neglected to inform me of this prior to your incarceration."

"My lord, I have no recollection of a transfer ritual. I can only assume you, or my Master on your orders, memory charmed me. It is not my place to question your reasons, therefore it seemed unnecessary to inform you I was aware of the transfer so long as I remained ignorant of my Master's identity."

Voldemort considers him for a moment. The Assistant is still on one knee, not having been told to rise after dropping to greet Voldemort. He keeps his head bowed, submissive.

"Lucius also claims you are capable of finding your Master."

"Lucius is correct, my lord. However, if you're asking whether I have, the answer is no."

He's glad one of his hands is pressed to his chest and the other hidden by the folds of his robes because they shake slightly at his lie and he wonders what order he's been given that he's close to resisting.

"Even to satisfy the... ache, I believe he said... that separation from your newly made Master brings?"

"Even then. Lucius is a Master, separated from his Slave for the first time and after fourteen years close proximity; he will not be aware that the ache of it can be partially satisfied by the indulgence of others. The carnal pleasures I seek with whores are solely for that purpose. Well, mostly for that purpose. I don't deny I take great pleasure purely from the act itself."

Voldemort keeps him waiting for longer as he decides whether or not to believe him, but eventually dismisses the Assistant with a harsh warning of the punishment the Assistant can expect if he seeks out his Master.

"Of course, my lord, but if I may—you should know that if you put him in the same room as me, or even in the same house, I will know him instantly and such proximity will be too much for me to resist submitting myself to him."

"Noted. Now leave me."

* * *

Lupin's out on a mission for the Order when Sirius hears a smash from the bathroom and an angry shout. He gets out of bed, grabbing his dressing gown and pulling it on as he leaves, tying it around him and moving down to the bathroom. The door's slightly ajar and he pushes it open.

"James?"

He stands over the sink, one towel wrapped around his waist and another slung over his shoulders, and his hands are clenched on the rim of the sink, the knuckles of his right hand bloody and the mirror smashed. His jaw's covered in shaving foam that's steadily turning pink from the blood dripping from the cut across his cheek and a bloody straight razor sits in the sink.

"You need any help?"

"No," James snarls, "I don't need any fuck-" He breaks himself off, clenching his jaw and closing his eyes, hands gripping the sink tighter, and then, after a moment, he sighs angrily. "Yes," he mutters. "Please."

Sirius nips back to his bedroom to grab his wand and returns to find James sat dejectedly on the edge of the bath tub, still dripping blood. Sirius heals his face first then his knuckles, then repairs the mirror and cleans away the blood before picking up the razor and holding it out to James. James glares at it.

"Alright," Sirius says, taking it back. "I thought you preferred those weird plastic Muggle ones Lily introduced you to anyway."

"I did, but I've probably forgotten how to use those, too."

"Why not use the spell?"

James looks at him sceptically. "I might not remember how to use a razor, but I remember almost dying in seventh year because I messed up that spell so badly I slashed my throat."

"Oh yeah," Sirius says, smiling reminiscently. "Peter screamed like a girl and fainted when he saw all the blood."

James snorts. "He was always kind of pathetic like that. Why were we ever friends with him?"

"Because we were stupid kids and you liked the attention."

"Yeah, I guess I did," he says, rubbing at his face then scowling when he gets shaving foam on his hand. Sirius gestures with the razor.

"Did you want me to...? Or I can use the spell. I've never slit anyone's throat with it."

James hesitates, unsure if his pride is more important than his desire for a clean shaven face, but eventually sighs. "If you don't mind using the razor..."

Sirius takes it up. For a while he simply works in silence, but as he's working on James' left cheek, James says quietly, "Lucius always did it."

Sirius pauses, eyes flicking to James', but his friend is staring firmly at the sink so Sirius lowers his gaze and continues working.

"He had this thing about grooming me. Shaving, cutting my hair, even tending my nails. If he wasn't such a rich, self-entitled pureblood, he'd probably have become a beautician."

"Of the flamboyantly camp variety? Because that I can imagine."

James almost smiles at that.

"What about in the hospital?"

James snorts. "They wouldn't let a straight razor within fifty feet of the ward. You had an orderly do the spell or you went without, unless you'd earned the privilege of using a Muggle razor, but even then you did it under watch. I never did earn the privilege but I didn't want to."

"Why not?"

"You have to ask?"

"Ye- oh, right, Muggle razors. I guess you objected to that."

"Just a bit."

They fall silent as Sirius moves onto James' throat, running the blade over his skin with slow, careful strokes. He generally prefers using the Shaving Spell—it's quicker, less risky in his opinion, and gave a smoother shave—but he knows how to use a razor. He's never done it on someone else though and it takes him a little longer than normal, keeping things slow to be sure he doesn't cut James up anymore than the other man has already managed to do.

Sirius only notices the scar when they're done and James is drying his face. He catches only a glimpse in the mirror at first, then James lowers the towel and Sirius sees the whole thing. James notices his eyes go wide then realises where Sirius' gaze is focused and slings the towel over his shoulder, jaw clenching as he turns away, but Sirius grabs him and pulls him around, jerking the towel away to look properly. James keeps his head turned away, jaw still clenched and a humiliated flush rising in his cheeks. Carved into the skin along the underside of his left collarbone are four words: _Property of Lucius Malfoy_.

"Son of a bitch."

"Sirius—"

"I'm going to fucking kill that piece of shit licking—"

"Sirius, shut up!"

James snatches the towel back from him, tossing it over his shoulder to hide the words. "Just... forget about it."

"Forget it? James, that's bastard's carv-"

"I know what he's done," James interrupts angrily. "I was there, remember? I don't need you pointing it all out to me."

He pushes past Sirius, stalking out the room and down to his own bedroom. Sirius runs both hands through his hair then slams his fist into the mirror, shattering it again and bloodying his own knuckles. It doesn't make him feel any better.

He finds James in their small garden later that day, sat in a garden chair and watching a couple of small birds flitting between the branches of the tree just past the garden fence, uncaring of the cold breeze and light drizzle. Sirius leans against the frame of the back door, folding his arms over his chest and remarking, "I'm pretty sure we don't own any garden chairs."

"Transfigured a rock," James replies without looking at him. His fingers tap against the arm of his chair and his foot jiggles restlessly. It's one of the little things that reminds Sirius on a daily basis that this man isn't the same person he used to know. James was never restless; energetic and full of life, sure, but not restless.

"I'm sorry about earlier," Sirius says after a minute of slightly awkward silence.

"It's fine."

Sirius nods. James still hasn't looked at him.

"We could go into Coleford town," he suggests lightly, "and get you a Muggle razor if you like."

James shakes his head. "I'm not sure I'm ready for crowds yet. Maybe some other time."

"Alright. I'm going to make lunch; you want anything?"

* * *

Harry's wary when Hermione asks him to stay behind after another D.A. meeting, wondering what she's going to ask him now, but Neville's there too this time and neither of them have that guilty, hesitant expression they get when they know he won't like what they have to say.

"Harry, we were wondering," Hermione begins, "whether you know how to do a Patronus Charm."

_Technically,_ the voice says snidely, _you do, but we both know that's not quite enough, is it?_

"Why?"

"Well, with the Dementors abandoning Azkaban, it'd be really good if we could learn it."

_What are you going to do? Lie? Tell them you don't know it? Or dare you admit that you're such a sad little boy that you can't produce one? I can just imagine the pitying looks on their faces now._

So can Harry, but he also knows if he says he can't do it, they'll want to know why when he can do any other spell he attempts.

"If you don't know it, we have the incantation and wand movements," Neville tells him, holding up a book he's pulled from one of the shelves. "You could try it."

_Oh, please do. Let them see you fail. It'd be good, you know. They should know you're just as human as they are, just as flawed and prone to failure. Oh... but I suppose they'll want to know why it fails for you, and Hermione's clever. She'll figure out you're too miserable to—_

Harry draws his wand, moving aside and ignoring the voice in his head. He's not miserable. He's not a sad little boy anymore. He's got a godfather who loves him, he's got Remus, he's got his friends, a home, a boyfriend. He has happy memories now, not just fun ones that are tinged with darkness.

But despite Sirius and Remus, despite his friends and boyfriend, despite his home, the memory he fixes on this time isn't any of them. It's the rush of pure, utter joy that filled him when he learnt he could get a false eye to replace his blind one. The feeling lasted days and just thinking about it is enough to make him smile.

" _Expecto Patronum!_ "

"Oh, wow!" Hermione breathes, staring at the gleaming silver fox. "Oh, Harry, it's _gorgeous_."

Harry grins, watching the fox bound around the room. "I think it'd be a good idea to learn them."

"Definitely," Neville agrees.

* * *

As always since October, Snape answers Voldemort's summons with a knot in his stomach. As a mercy to Snape, Voldemort granted Harry clemency whilst he strived to obtain the prophecy, but he's made no further comments on his plans for Harry since the prophecy was stolen from the Ministry. The Order works under the assumption Voldemort wants Harry dead, but Snape still dreads the day he'll hear confirmation from Voldemort himself.

He appears in the ground floor hall and immediately jerks aside as a green plastic ball the size of a football almost drops onto his head. It halts just millimetres above where his head had been, hovering in mid-air. He stares at it. It's transparent and inside is a terrified looking rat with a silver paw. When he looks up, it's to see the Assistant looking over the railing of the second floor.

"Sorry, Severus. Didn't mean to almost hit you," he calls down with a grin.

Snape doesn't think much of the Assistant, but under Dumbledore's orders he's to try and befriend the man and learn what he can from him. "Dare I ask what you're doing?"

"Exercising Wormtail. Care to join me?"

"Delightful though I'm sure that is," he drawls, "I've been summoned."

"Kinda figured that. I meant afterwards."

"I have to return to the school."

"Pity. Maybe some other time."

Snape hears Wormtail squeak wildly as the ball zooms back up to the Assistant and he turns away to the sitting room.

* * *

The Assistant's sat on the stairs between the ground and first floors by the time Snape leaves the sitting room. He's released Pettigrew, who scurried away red faced and unhappy, and he rises when the sitting room door opens, opening his mouth to speak but then saying nothing when he sees the tense set of Snape's shoulders.

"He wants to see you," Snape says, tone unnecessarily sharp, eyes cold as they glance at the Assistant briefly before he Disapparates with a crack.

"You wished to see me, my lord?"

"Have a seat, Assistant."

He moves to one of the chairs, settling in it and looking across at Voldemort.

"Tell me—what do you believe is the best way to convince Harry Evans to join my ranks?"

* * *

James' first Order meeting is tense. He sits between Lupin and Sirius, drumming his fingers against the table and flicking his eyes from person to person, looking at each of them like they're all potential threats and he's trying to work out who's the most dangerous. He says nothing, but listens to everyone else with the same intensity that he looks at them with. Afterwards, he watches them leave and relaxes a little more with each person that exits the kitchen.

"You alright, Prongs?"

James nods, but says nothing.

"You know you don't have to come next time if it's too much for you."

James glances at him only briefly before continuing to watch people leave. "Got to get used to it sometime," he mutters.

"Yeah, but it's only been a couple of weeks since you got out of the hospital. No one will—"

"I'm fine," James interrupts snappishly.

Sirius nods stiffly. "Fine."

They say nothing more to each other until that evening, when James comes to the kitchen while Sirius is getting a glass of water before bed.

"I'm sorry for snapping at you earlier."

Sirius turns from the sink, lifting his glass to drink a few mouthfuls and let James stand uncomfortably for a few moments before he nods. "I just want to help you as much as I can, Prongs."

"I know," James sighs. "And I'm sorry I keep snapping, it's just... it's hard, Padfoot."

* * *

The Assistant almost feels cheerful as he sneaks into Hogwarts. He's got his cloak back, he's being sent on an easy mission, and afterwards he gets forty-eight hours which he intends to spend with Yaxley, even if that means following him invisibly into work for a couple of days. He honestly doesn't care as long as they're near each other.

It make him tremor to go there. Voldemort might have made it clear that he doesn't want the Assistant seeking out Yaxley, but as he's not expressly forbidden it the Assistant can still go. It's a loophole and the magic of the Bond knows it, but he _needs_ his Master and Yaxley doesn't send him away so the Assistant will continue to seek him out as long as he can.

* * *

Harry comes back to his dorm after classes on the last Friday of January to find a plain white box on his pillow. It's about six inches long, three inches wide, and three inches tall, encircled with black ribbon with a small card tucked under it. He pulls the card out and flips it open to read, _For Harry Evans, to be opened in private._

_Oh, God,_ the voice moans unhappily. _He's leaving gifts on your pillow. That's sickening. Were I more than a voice in your head, I might actually vomit._

Harry frowns, climbing onto his bed and pulling the curtains shut. That's not Draco's handwriting.

"Hell of a time for a wank!" Cid calls. "Dinner's soon!"

"Not wanking," Harry calls back, tugging at the ribbon. It falls away and he wiggles the lid off the box, then feels his chest tighten. There's another card inside, this one black but with the Dark Mark etched on it in green. Dreading what might be underneath, he carefully picks it up, and then gives a surprised cry.

"Merlin, Harry, keep it down. We don't wanna hear."

Harry doesn't respond. Lying in the box, stiff and very obviously dead, is a rat with a single silver paw.

_Well at least it's not a vomit-inducing romantic gift._

He yanks the curtains open just enough to dig in his drawer for the two-way mirror, ignoring Cid, and jerks them shut again, Wishing for them not to open to anyone else and putting up Silencing Charms so no one will hear him.

"Sirius! Sirius Black! Sirius, please, it's urgent. Even if you're... with Remus, I need to talk to you _now_."

The surface of the mirror ripples but instead of Sirius it's James' face who looks out.

"Sirius is in the bathroom," he says. "He'll be out in just a sec. What's wrong?"

"I can't—I'm sorry, James, it needs to be Sirius."

James nods. "It's fine. I understand. I just thought I was going mad for a minute, hearing voices. He's coming now. Sirius? Harry's on your two-way mirror."

The mirror blurs and Sirius face appears then. "Everythi-"

"Sirius, it's Wormtail."

Sirius' face instantly turns serious. "What about him?"

"He's dead. I got—"

"Dead? How do you know? Did you have another dream?"

"No, he's here. I just got back from classes and there was this box on my bed and when I opened it, Wormtail's inside, as a rat."

"You're sure it's him?"

"It's got a silver paw and this card came with it." He picks up the card with the Dark Mark on, turning it over to show him and as he does sees that there's writing on the back.

"Shit," Sirius swears. "Harry—"

"There's a message on the back."

"What message?"

He reads it straight from the card. It's not signed, but it doesn't need to be.

_I hope one day you'll replace the gap this leaves in my ranks. It's a position far more worthy of you than this rat._


	49. Chapter 49

"Go to Snape," Sirius orders.

"What? Why him?!"

"He's a spy for the Order. Show him all of it—the rat, the card, the whole lot. He'll pass it on to Dumbledore."

"Shouldn't I just go straight to Dumbledore?"

"No, you can't risk drawing Umbridge's attention. Go to Snape, right now."

Harry agrees, somewhat reluctantly, but doesn't waste time leaving the dorm and heading for Snape's office. The man is just leaving when Harry gets there and he calls out.

"Professor!"

Snape pauses, turning to see Harry running down the corridor towards him, a small white box clutched in his hands.

"I need to—"

Snape lunges forwards and grabs Harry as his body stiffens suddenly and he falls unconscious, the box slipping from his fingers to hit the floor and fall open. Something falls out of it but Snape ignores it for the moment, carefully lowering Harry to the floor as he seizes. He draws his wand, conjures a small pillow and slips it under Harry's head, checks his watch to keep an eye on how long it lasts, and only then notices the dead rat that fell from the box. He scowls, reaching into his pocket for a handkerchief and wondering why on earth Harry was running around with a dead rat, then notices the silver paw. He picks it up hurriedly, looking closer to assure himself it isn't just a trick of the light, then hurriedly wraps it up and shoves it in his pocket and grabs the two halves of the box just as Draco Malfoy, Pansy Parkinson, Theo Nott, and Tracey Davis turn into the corridor.

"You guys go on, I'll catch up."

Pansy doesn't look pleased at Draco's words and shoots a scowl at Harry, but she follows after Tracey and Theo.

"You can go to dinner, sir," Draco says, crouching by Harry. "I can look after him now."

"That won't be necessary," Snape replies, a sharp bite to his voice. "He was about to tell me something when it happened. You needn't stay, Mr Malfoy."

"I want to though," he says, noticing a card on the floor and bending to pick it up. He frowns at the odd message written on it then turns it over and inhales sharply. Snape rises, snatching the card from him, his face turning white as he sees the Dark Mark on one side and the message on the other.

Snape gets Harry up and into his office the moment he's coherent enough to do so. He orders Draco to wait in the hallway and slams the door shut, guiding Harry into a chair and taking the box and the rat from his pocket and setting them on the desk.

"Would you care to explain this?"

Harry looks at them, confused for a minute, then straightens. "It was on my bed when I got back from classes, on my pillow. I opened it and that was inside and a card—"

Snape holds the card up, tucked between two fingers.

"Sirius said I should bring it straight to you so you can take it to Dumbledore without suspicion."

"Black told you that? How?"

"We have these two-way mirrors. He gave me one so I can talk to him if I ever need." He swallows thickly, then asks, "It's a trick... right? It's not real, is it? I mean, he can't... I'm the Boy Who Lived. He wants to kill me."

_Apparently not. I wonder what's changed. I hope you realise this warrants further investigation. You had better not ignore this like everything else._

Instead of answering him, Snape puts the card down and re-wraps his handkerchief around the rat before putting it in the box. "Draco Malfoy is stood outside. When you seized, the box dropped and the card fell out. He saw it before I did and picked it up."

"Shit."

Snape doesn't admonish him. "You should be wary of how much you tell him and, though I hope to never have to say this again, you should consider wiping his memory of this. I don't know how much contact he has had with his father, or what Lucius might have told him if they are in contact, but the less he knows of this the better, no matter how close you might have grown lately."

"Draco can keep a secret."

"For how long? He may have kept your identity secret but circumstances are a great deal more different now. Do you expect him to keep your secrets when his father contacts him?"

"Yes," Harry says stubbornly.

_Sure about that?_

"Then you're a fool. Whatever Draco might feel for you now will not trump his loyalty to his father. Lucius is the Dark Lord's most favoured Death Eater right now; your relationship with Draco—"

"My relationship with Draco is none of your business, _sir_ ," Harry says pointedly, getting to his feet and glaring at Snape.

"It will do you no good."

"Screw you! You don't get to tell me what's good for me! Only parents do that!"

"I am your parent!" Snape snaps.

Several of the jars decorating the shelves explode, sending glass and wet, slimy things of indeterminate nature flying across the room.

The door bursts open and Draco rushes in, sliding to a halt when he sees the mess. A piece of glass hit Harry across the face, slicing his cheek, and there's several small shards buried in the back of Snape's hand, which he used to cover his face.

"You're not," Harry says, quietly furious. "Don't ever dare try and claim that you are."

Snape says nothing. Draco glances between them, wondering if he should have just stayed in the corridor. Harry turns away from Snape, going to Draco and taking his hand, not looking back as he steps out the room.

"What was all that about?"

"Nothing. It doesn't matter."

Draco stops and pulls Harry about to face him. The cut on his cheek is still bleeding and Draco draws his wand, tapping it to the wound and murmuring a spell, watching it seal up to leave behind only the blood that already escaped, and another spells siphons that off, leaving his face clean and undamaged.

"You know healing spells?"

"Evans, please. My mother was a healer; of course I know basic healing spells." He pockets his wand and lifts his hand to cup Harry's cheek. "You blew those jars up, didn't you? You were angry. Why?"

"He just said something I didn't like. It doesn't matter, Draco."

"You were injured. That matters."

"And you fixed me, so now it doesn't," he says gently, leaning forward to kiss him. Draco moans softly, hand slipping around to cup the back of Harry's head, but then he makes a small noise of protest and breaks it.

"What about the card?"

Harry sighs, dropping his chin and turning his head away slightly. "That wasn't why I blew up the jars."

"Okay, but... was it serious? Was that really from the Dark Lord?"

"Yes, but it's not serious. It's just a trick or something, some way to make me walk up to him and let him kill me, as if I'm that stupid."

"It said something about a rat. What—"

"Don't, Draco. Please don't ask me about this. It needs to be one of those things we don't talk about, okay?"

"Alright," he says softly.

* * *

It's Lupin who finds James lying on his bed, eyes shut, shirtless, and dripping blood from a long, deep cut along the underside of his collarbone. As he rushes in, drawing his wand to heal the wound, James opens his eyes and looks at him, completely calm.

"James, what..." he trails off, noticing the straight razor on the floor, the blade bloody. "Did you do that to yourself?"

James nods.

" _Why?_ "

"I had to scratch it out."

"Scratch what out? Let me heal—"

"No!" James sits up, grabbing Lupin's wrist and twisting it until the wand slips from Lupin's fingers. His face is no longer calm, eyes now slightly panicked, and the movement sends more blood sliding down his chest. "If you heal it, it won't scar."

"Why do you want to it to scar?" Lupin asks, but then he remembers a conversation he had with Sirius a few weeks ago, and he looks at the injury a little closer, seeing the scarred words underneath the blood.

"I'm not his."

Lupin doesn't know what to say to that.

"At least let me clean it up and bandage it. It'll still scar," he adds when James draws back, "but it'll stop it getting infected."

James hesitates, then nods. Lupin bends to pick up his wand then gets to his feet. "I'm going to call Sam, as well. She needs to know about this."

James just nods again.

* * *

"There's a Hogsmeade weekend in a couple of weeks."

"I've heard."

"It's on Valentine's Day."

"I know."

"So you'll be going with me."

Harry tilts his head back, ignoring the retching noises the voice is making in protest to anything as sentimental as Valentine's Day. He's on a cushion on the floor, a book in his lap while he's leant against Draco's legs with Draco's fingers combing through his hair. "That's very insistent of you."

"You're not going with anyone else."

"I'm not going at all."

"Why not?" Draco demands, hands going still. "It's Valentine's Day; you have to come with me."

"My Hogsmeade privileges were revoked when I snuck off in October. I'm not allowed in for the rest of the year."

"Oh," Draco says, calming down and continuing to play with his hair. "Damn."

* * *

Neville fidgets nervously.

"Hermione, I was wondering if... you wanted to maybe... gotoHogsmeadewithme? On Valentine's Day?"

"Of course," Hermione says without looking up from her Herbology homework. "We always go together, you don't have to ask."

"Right," Neville says, nodding. "But, um... I meant... _together_ together. On a... a date."

"Oh!" She looks up at him in surprise. "Oh, I... yes," she says, smiling. "I would love to go on a date with you, Neville."

* * *

Cid whoops as he enters the dorm a week before Valentine's Day, drawing looks from his roommates.

"Guess who's got a date next weekend? Moi!"

"With who? Your right hand?" Tyler mocks, but Cid just grins.

"Tabitha."

Tyler scrambles up from his bed, staring at Cid. "No way. She thinks you're a vulgar and crude. Jia told me so."

"Jia told you wrong. She agreed to go out with me on Valentine's Day."

* * *

On Saturday Harry goes to breakfast with Tyler, after they've watched Cid give Tabitha an entire bouquet of roses in the common room. Tyler's still sceptical about Tabitha liking Cid, but she looks pleased with the roses and the two of them go up to the Great Hall together, Cid turning to shoot a triumphant grin at them. Harry hasn't seen Draco, but a quick glance through the wall of their dorm, which neighbours the fifth years', shows him taking his time getting dressed after his shower.

After they've eaten, Harry waves goodbye to Tyler, who's going to Hogsmeade with Alex Stone ("Not on a date," Tyler says pointedly. "Just as friends."), and heads back towards the dungeons. He still hasn't seen Draco properly yet, but less then a minute after he's entered the dorm there's a knock at the door.

"Grab a cloak," Draco orders when he comes in, carrying his Firebolt. "We're going flying."

"I'm not meant to—"

"Fly unsupervised, I know. But," he says, sauntering further into the room and leaning against the post of Harry's bed, "that would only apply when you're on a broom yourself. Today, you're flying with me on my broom." He pauses, then adds, "That's not a euphemism by the way."

 _Terrible one if it was,_ the voice mutters.

Harry expects to be sitting behind Draco on the broom, but Draco has him sit in front and wraps his arms around him to clutch the broom handle.

"I'll have a harder time catching you if you're behind me," he points out. "Much safer to keep you in front of me."

Harry agrees with that, but he's also pleased to be sat in front. He likes being wrapped in Draco's arms and as the smaller of the two, it's easily done and not awkward or uncomfortable once they're both settled in place.

They can't fly on the Quidditch pitch as the Gryffindor team have it booked for the day to practice, but Draco and Harry spend a little while hovering to watch them. Fred and George's replacement Beaters aren't half as good and the new Keeper, although better than Ron, appears to be trying to take over captaining duties as well. Angelina Johnson, the real captain, is very clearly annoyed.

"They've got no hope in their match against Hufflepuff," Draco says happily.

When it starts raining, Draco suggests they head back inside but Harry's enjoying himself so they stay out until lunch, by which time they're both soaked to the bone and shivering. Draco tries to pull him straight inside but Harry stops him before they reach the doors, pulling him close for a kiss.

"Evans, we're getting wet."

"We're already wet, Malfoy. A little more water won't hurt us."

"You can kiss me inside when we're dry."

"But I want to kiss you in the rain."

Draco rolls his eyes but obliges, wrapping his free arm around Harry's waist and pulling him in, their lips meeting as Harry wraps both arms around Draco's neck and presses their bodies close.

His day, Harry discovers later, goes a lot better than Cid's. Tyler's doubts about Tabitha turn out to be correct. Their date is nothing more than an attempt to make Michael Jamison, from Ravenclaw, jealous and it works. Jamison sees them kissing in Madam Puddifoots, a little tea shop off the main High Street, and promptly storms in and hexes Cid. Tabitha decides this is a clear display of Jamison's undying love and leaves with him, uncaring of the fact that Cid is still covered in boils.

Cid's mood only gets worse when he finds out his sister Layla has received a Valentine's card from Dennis Creevey. He storms over to the Gryffindor table in the middle of dinner and pulls Dennis up, threatening him with all manner of jinxes if Dennis even thinks about touching Layla, and subsequently gets thrown in detention by Umbridge and loses ten house points.

* * *

Draco's right about the Hufflepuff-Gryffindor match: Hufflepuff win 230-60 because Cormac McLaggen, the Gryffindor Keeper, spends so much time shouting at the other players about what to do that he neglects to properly guard the goals. By the end of the match, Angelina Johnson is almost in tears.

The rest of the D.A. is more than eager to learn the Patronus charm, but there's a lot of disappointment when, by the end of their first session trying, no one's managed to produce a corporeal one. Hermione's comes closest, taking the vague shape of something furry.

Harry finds out about Hermione and Neville only when he's following them out of the Room of Requirement and notices Neville slip his hand into Hermione's and smile at her the way Draco smiles at Harry.

"Are you two going out?" he blurts, and they pause.

"Yes," Hermione says with a small, slightly embarrassed smile.

"Since when?"

"Valentine's Day," Neville answers.

"That's alright then. I thought it might have been longer," he says when they look confused, "and that you hadn't told me."

"We did sort of want to see how long it would take you to notice," Hermione tells him. "You can be incredibly oblivious sometimes."

Harry starts to deny it then remembers that he was apparently the only person in Slytherin not to realise Draco fancied him or that Tyler was making out with half the student body.

"Yeah, well," he grumbles good-naturedly, then smiles. "I'm happy for you guys."

* * *

At the end of February, Harry finds an envelope on his pillow. On the front are the words, _For Harry Evans, to be opened in private_. Inside are several newspaper clippings—but not from the _Daily Prophet_. All of them are from Muggle newspapers and contain stories of violence against children, abused kids like him and a few who have been killed by their guardians. There's another card with the Dark Mark on as well.

_This is what I strive to eradicate, destroying monsters who would abuse and kill their children. You have suffered at the hands of Muggles who would call themselves your family; join me and you could have your revenge. You can show them the true power of magic and prove why wizardkind must take their rightful place as the rulers of this world._

_It's not like he's completely wrong,_ the voice says thoughtfully as Harry takes the envelope and its contents to Snape. _Wizards are better than Muggles. You admitted as much to the diary in your first year._

'I don't think they should be killed.'

_Perhaps not all of them, but you cannot honestly say you would not like Vernon Dursley to die. You should at least admit to yourself that while you may not approve of Voldemort's methods, neither do you disagree with his opinions._

'I don't hate them, I just don't really care about them. And he hates Muggleborns as well. He'd happily kill Hermione. He happily killed my mum. He tried to kill me. Whatever I do or don't think of Muggles, I'd never join him.'

Snape's jaw clenches as he looks through the envelope's contents and reads the card.

"Is it genuine? Does he really want _me_ working for him?"

"You're an incredibly powerful young wizard. He respects that."

"He tried to kill me. More than once. Why has he suddenly changed his mind?"

Snape puts the articles and card back in the envelope. "Because of the prophecy."

"But the prophecy says I'm the only one who can defeat him; why would that make him want to _not_ kill me?"

Snape's gaze flicks to his office door at the sound of footsteps and muffled voices outside and he takes the envelope from his desk, slipping it into his pocket and getting to his feet. "This is neither the time nor place for this discussion."

"Then when and where is?"

Snape considers him for a while before saying slowly, "That depends on how willing you are to speak with me. Dumbledore would prefer not to have any further discussions with you while Dolores Umbridge remains in the school."

"I want to know."

Snape nods. "I assume you remember how to access my quarters; come tonight. The password has not changed since you were last there. Do not let yourself be seen leaving the common room nor entering my rooms."

It's almost one in the morning before the common room empties. He watches through the walls as Montague goes to the bathroom before finally going to the seventh year dorm and getting into bed. Only then does Harry put his book aside, cloak himself in invisibility and slip out the common room, moving silently through the halls to Snape's quarters and letting himself in.

Snape's rooms haven't changed in the slightest in two and half years, and once again Harry has to wonder why he would ever choose to spend his summers in the cramped little house on Spinner's End when he could permanently reside in his more spacious quarters here, which has a nice black leather sofa and armchair, better lighting, access to the school's house elves, and his personal potions lab.

"The Dark Lord does not know the entire prophecy," Snape tells him. "He only knows it speaks of a child born at the end of July to parents who thrice defied him."

"Me."

"Yes, but there were two children who it could have been before the Dark Lord attacked Godric's Hollow: you and Longbottom."

Harry can't hide his surprise at that. "Neville? Really?"

"His parents defied the Dark Lord three times, as did Lily and Potter. It is for that reason that the Dark Lord no longer believes, or at least claims to no longer believe, that you are the child of which the prophecy speaks. He knows Potter is not your real father."

Harry's face pales. "How?"

"Potter himself. He told Lucius Malfoy a great deal during his imprisonment and Lucius has passed that information onto the Dark Lord. Given that I have not defied the Dark Lord, he has decided that the prophecy refers to Longbottom rather than you. Subsequently, he now desires you working for him rather than dead."

"Does Neville know?"

"No."

"Why not? Voldemort wants him dead; he should know that."

" _Do not say the Dark Lord's name_ ," Snape says harshly. Harry narrows his eyes.

"Why? Fear of a name only increases fear of a thing itself and I'm not going to be afraid of Voldemort."

"Then you're an idiot," Snape spits. "The Dark Lord may want you in his ranks right now, but he will not hesitate to kill you if you stand against him."

"Voldemort's the idiot for ever thinking I'd work for him. He killed my mother, he tried to kill me. If I wanted revenge on my uncle I wouldn't need _him_ to take it, and he can talk crap about Muggles all he likes, I'm not going to condone killing them. One of my best friends is Muggleborn. I'll never stand with people who hate her just because of her parents."

"And when it's her life he threatens as he asks for your loyalty? Will you continue to stand against him if he threatened your friends or your godfather and promised to let them live only if you joined him?"

"Are you trying to convince me to join him?" Harry asks angrily. "Sirius said you're a spy but maybe it's the Order you're spying on, not Voldemort, and this is another ploy of his to make me join him."

Snape leans forward, slamming his palm down on the coffee table between them, staring harshly at Harry. "I would rather die than see you with a Dark Mark on your arm," he snarls.

_I do believe he actually means it. He might just care for you after all._

"Shut up," Harry snaps.

Snape's face twists from angry to furious. He stands, moves around the coffee table to grab Harry by the arm and haul him to his feet. "I have answered your queries. Get out."

Harry doesn't tell him he wasn't talking to him, just jerks his arm from Snape's grip, turns himself invisible and stalks out the door.

* * *

Harry wants to tell Neville that Voldemort wants to kill him, but he can't without mentioning the prophecy and how he came to know about it, and he doesn't know how he's supposed to tell someone that there's a homicidal madman out to get them. He suddenly understands why Dumbledore never told him anything.


	50. Chapter 50

_So what do we think? Is your daddy a spy for the Order or for the Dark Lord? Much that you dislike him, I am leaning towards the Order. He might be a terrible daddy and teacher, but he's never shown any of the cruelty that one expects from Death Eaters. Mind you, neither did the Assistant and look at him. Of course, his loyalty is just as questionable. Perhaps it's you. The Assistant works for the Dark Lord but he makes exceptions for you; perhaps it's the same for your da-_

"He's not my fucking daddy!"

The rest of the class stare at him. Umbridge breaks the silence.

"Detention, Mr Evans. I will not have foul language and outbursts in my classroom."

"What was that about?" Tyler mutters to Harry.

"Nothing."

"Nothing made you have an outburst? Come on. Who were you talking about?"

"No one. Just drop it."

Tyler turns back to his book, but his expression says the topic's far from over. Harry inhales deeply and stares at his own book without seeing it. He closes his eyes, forcing himself to calm down and focus on what he needs to do.

All of you forget what I said, he Wishes silently. Believe you heard me say "I'm fucking bored". Forget that I said anything about my father.

He doesn't relax until class lets out and Cid says, "Merlin, Harry, you're fucking crazy. I know those lessons suck, but what the hell made you go shouting about it?"

Harry merely shrugs.

At eight o'clock that evening Harry arrives at Umbridge's office and takes a seat at the small table beside her desk when she tells him to.

"You'll be writing lines this evening," she says, gesturing to the piece of parchment and quill on the table. "You will write, _I will not use inappropriate language_."

"How many times?"

"As many as it takes to sink in. You may begin."

"You haven't given me any ink."

"You won't need it."

He picks up the quill, sets it to the paper and begins writing, surprised to see red ink instead of the usual black. As soon as he's written the sentence out, pain lashes across his hand and he looks at it to see the words written on his skin like they've been cut in with a scalpel, then fading away to leave the skin red but smooth. He frowns, wondering if he's imagining things, but he writes the line again and this time he's certain of it when the words appear on his hand.

"Is there a problem, Mr Evans?" Umbridge asks innocently, noticing him pause, and then she shrieks when her window explodes outwards. Harry doesn't even flinch. He carefully lays the quill down beside the parchment.

"Yes," he says quietly. "There is."

Umbridge flicks her wand, casting _reparo_ on the window, then looks at him, still a little shaky. "I don't see that there is. Continue with your lines."

"No."

Umbridge looks shocked, then outraged. "Another night's detention. Now continue."

The quill bursts into flames. Harry's chair scrapes against the floor as he stands up. The ornamental plates hanging on the walls start to shake and a couple fall and smash to the floor.

"I am sick and tired of adults abusing me," he says, voice still quiet but rising in volume as he speaks. "I'm sick and tired of adults telling me what to do. Of adults thinking they can control my life just because I'm _a fucking kid!_ " he screams, and every one of the plate smashes, sending shards of china flying across the room. Harry shields himself; Umbridge is not so clever and she cries out as a few pieces cut across her face and hands.

_That. Was. BRILLIANT. It's about time you stood up to these people instead of running away._

"Expelled!" Umbridge cries, shaking in her seat. "I will have you expelled for this!"

"I honestly don't care."

The door opens and McGonagall looks in, breaking off in the middle of asking what all the noise is about as she notices the mess of broken plates and the cuts on Umbridge.

"Oh Merlin," she breathes, and while to Umbridge it might sound like an exclamation of surprise, Harry hears it for what it really is—a sad remark of realisation at what's happened and what it means.

"Professor McGonagall, fetch Professor Snape," Umbridge orders, getting to her feet and moving around the desk. "I am taking Evans here to the headmaster's office. He'll be expelled for this."

McGonagall looks at Harry like she's hoping he'll say something to defend himself, but he says nothing and his expressions remains stoic. McGonagall sighs sadly, turning away without another word.

Umbridge tries to grab Harry's arm to drag him to Dumbledore's office, but Harry jerks away and stalks out the door, broken china crunching under foot.

"I believe the quickest route to the headmaster's office is this way," he says gesturing down the hall. Umbridge hurries out the room after him, lifting her chin and looking down her nose at him.

"I will lead the way," she says, pretending she'd not heard him speak. "Follow me."

Dumbledore is surprised to see them at first, then politely curious as Umbridge explains what happened, but when his eyes flick to Harry he seems almost disappointed.

When Snape arrives, Dumbledore holds up a hand to stop Umbridge explaining everything again.

"I would like to hear Mr Evans' side of the story."

"It's precisely as she said," Harry says coolly. "I had a justly deserved detention, but when I found out I would be writing lines with a quill that appeared to be cursed to carve the words into my hand as I wrote, I became angry. I shouted at her and in an accidental magical outburst destroyed every one of the ugly as fuck plates in her office. It's really not a big loss if you ask me."

Snape closes his eyes briefly, jaw clenching, and Harry knows if Umbridge weren't there Snape would be calling him a fool, a dunderhead, an idiot, and whatever other insult came to mind.

Dumbledore's frowning, but when he speaks it's not to scold Harry.

"Blood Quills are dark magic items."

Harry expects Umbridge to at least look a little guilty at this, but she merely lifts her chin. "They're perfectly legal."

"But not condoned for use as punishment within Hogwarts."

"I'm sure you haven't forgotten Educational Decree Number Twenty-Five, Headmaster, which gives the High Inquisitor—that is, me—supreme authority over all punishments pertaining to the students of Hogwarts."

"I have not," Dumbledore replies calmly, but Harry wonders if he's seething underneath. If he is, Harry wishes he had half as much control over his emotions as Dumbledore does. "However I'm sure you're aware that dark magic can cause certain witches' and wizards' magic to behave oddly. Mr Evans cannot be held accountable for the damage wrought by your insistence on bringing him into contact with dark magic."

Umbridge glares at him, clenching and unclenching her fists for several moments as she tries to come up with a response to that, but eventually all she says is, "That does not excuse his actions. I warned you, Dumbledore, that if he stepped out of line again after sneaking into Hogsmeade in October that I wanted him out of this school and I mean it. He is a bad influence on the rest of the students. He cannot be seen to be getting away with attacking the High Inquisitor. You can't protect him anymore, Dumbledore. I'm personally writing to Minister Fudge and the Chairman of the Board of Governors tonight."

She leaves and Dumbledore turns to Harry.

"I cannot guarantee you anything if Henry Athelstan agrees to a meeting to discuss this, Harry," he warns him. "My influence with the Board of Governors is minimal."

"I understand, sir," Harry replies. "You warned me in October about behaving myself, but I couldn't sit there and use that quill. I appreciate anything you can do for me, but I accept full responsibility for my actions."

Dumbledore nods. "I will do my very best for you; I certainly have no desire to see you expelled. Professor Snape will escort you back to Slytherin now."

_I'm sure we can make the most of it if you do get expelled. You hardly need a Hogwarts education anyway. You can spend your last two years on this planet doing something worthwhile. Perhaps you'll even find a way out of your demon deal without pesky things like homework and boyfriends getting in the way of your research._

The looks and murmurs that greet Harry's entrance to Slytherin tell him the story's already got around. He ignores them and heads straight to the dorms, where Cid and Tyler instantly pester him.

"Everyone's saying you trashed Umbridge's office," Tyler says. "It true?"

"Yes."

"Awesome," Cid declares, grinning. "About time someone took that bitch down a notch."

"They're talking about expelling me."

Their amusement dies.

"Not awesome," Tyler says, at the same moment Orion Devaux declares from across the room, "Well deserved."

"Fuck you, Devaux," Cid says. Orion merely looks smug.

"It's about time they got rid of some of the trash in this school."

His bed falls apart.

Orion isn't injured and a house elf has the bed repaired in minutes, but when Snape comes to inspect the damage his eyes flick knowingly to Harry, who meets his gaze unflinching. Snape looks away again, expression unchanging, but Harry would swear he can hear the man's teeth grinding.

Draco bursts into the room shortly after Snape and the house elf have left. Orion's gone too, having shot a dirty look at Harry, Tyler, and Cid as if he blames them for his bed breaking despite there being no evidence for it.

"I was in the library," Draco says to Harry. "People are saying you've been expelled for assaulting Umbridge. Tell me it's not true."

"It's half true."

"Which half?"

"I got angry, my magic had an outburst, Umbridge got injured, and now she's writing to the Minister for Magic and the Chairman of the Board of Governors about the possibility of expelling me."

"They can't expel you for accidental magic."

"I shouted at her too."

"You should probably fuck tonight," Cid tells them. "Might be your last chance."

Harry turns red and doesn't look at anyone. Tyler rolls his eyes. Draco looks at Cid disdainfully.

"What we do tonight is none of your concern."

Cid shrugs. "Just saying."

* * *

"You alright?"

Harry doesn't answer. He and Draco are in one corner of the common room, Draco sat on one of the sofas while Harry lays across it, his head in the other boy's lap.

"They won't expel you."

"They might. I've been an idiot. I shouldn't have lost my temper."

"Why did you?"

Harry fiddles with the seam along the edge of the sofa cushions. Draco's fingers are combing through his hair, something he normally finds relaxing but at the moment he's too worried.

"For detention I had to write lines with this quill that carved the words into my hand as I wrote. Dumbledore said it was dark magic but Umbridge said it was legal, but how can it be? I mean, it's torture practically. It can't be allowed."

"Dumbledore would know if it was illegal. The Ministry might be cracking down on him but if Umbridge was using something illegal he'd have her out of the castle before you can say 'fired'. It can be used in your defence though. Dark magic affects people and you've clearly got quite volatile magic anyway."

"Dumbledore did say something about it precipitating an outburst, but Umbridge still wants me expelled because of my record. Well, mostly because she just doesn't like me, I think, but she's claiming it's because of my record."

He can't get to sleep that night. He tries to convince himself that he'll be fine, but alone in the dark of his own bed, he can't seem to find the confidence he'd had in Dumbledore's office that even if he's expelled, he'll be alright. It doesn't help that the voice is quite taken with the idea of leaving Hogwarts and devoting his entire time to finding a way out of the demon deal, something he's not yet been able to do. As extensive as the Hogwarts library is, it doesn't have what he needs and he's starting to think he's going to have to look towards more obscure texts, possibly even ones focused on Dark Arts.

* * *

"Draco? Draco?"

Draco groans, rolls over, and blinks up at Harry sleepily. "Evans? Wha' time is it?"

"About three. Can I sleep with you?"

By way of answer, Draco shuffles over and lifts the covers. Harry climbs into the bed, turns on his side to lie with his back to Draco's bare chest, and links his fingers with Draco's when the other boy slings his arm over Harry. Draco's asleep again within moments, but Harry lays awake, just listening to him breathe for an hour before he finally drifts to sleep as well.

Draco shakes him awake a few hours later. He's already washed and dressed, but he waits as Harry sluggishly shuffles back to his own dorm to get dressed. He doesn't have time for a shower but he Wishes himself clean. It's not the same but it'll do.

He's barely sat down at breakfast when Hermione comes rushing over from the Gryffindor table, completely ignoring the dirty looks she gets from more than a few of the other Slytherins.

"Everyone's saying you've been expelled for trying to kill Umbridge. It's not true, is it?"

Draco, sat opposite Harry, sneers. "You're supposed to be smart, Granger."

"I'm not talking to you, Malfoy."

"No, it's not true," Harry says before the two of them can get into a fight. "Yet."

"What's that supposed to mean? What happened?"

"I lost my temper in detention last night and now she's trying to get me expelled. She's contacting the Board of Governors and Minister Fudge."

"But they can't expel you for losing your temper!"

"They can when I've already been in serious trouble this year. And I didn't just lose my temper; my magic lashed out. I trashed her office and injured her."

"But something must have set you off. You wouldn't have done it for no reason and if there was a trigger then you can defend yourself."

"I have thought of that, Hermione," he tells her, yawning and rubbing tiredly at his eyes. He'd desperately like to go back to bed. "Dumbledore's doing what he can to help me. I'll be fine, Hermione," he assures her even though he doesn't really believe it himself, but she's worrying at her lip and looking ready to rush off to the library and start compiling a complete legal defence for him. "Dumbledore won't let them expel me."

"You don't believe that, do you?" Draco asks when Hermione's left. Harry looks over the various breakfast food laid out on the table and finds there's absolutely nothing that appeals to him. "You'll need a more positive attitude if there is a meeting with the Chairman of the Board of Governors," he says when Harry doesn't respond. "People react to confidence, Evans."

Harry frowns, pouring himself some juice after deciding he really can't stomach food right now. "Surely that meeting won't involve me. It'd be the Chairman and Dumbledore and Umbridge."

"And Snape, your godfather, and yourself. They're not going to decide the future of your education without you."

"Why not? Adults always decide everything else without me."

"You have the right to defend yourself, Evans. They'll want to hear your opinion on the matter."

Harry snorts. "Yeah, I'm sure Umbridge is really eager for me to talk."

He's glad to have Potions that morning. Forcing himself to focus on brewing helps take his mind off his potential expulsion and with Snape hovering over them no one dares ask him about what happened, as more than a few people did at breakfast and in the hallways on the way to class. He has Ancient Runes afterwards which is almost as good at focusing his mind, but he's spent so much time studying runes lately that it's become his second best subject and he finds translations noticeably less difficult than he used to, so it doesn't keep his mind as distracted as he'd like.

His nerves have calmed down enough by lunch that he manages to eat three-quarters of a sandwich, but then Snape comes stalking down the hall towards him and delivers news that makes Harry think he might just vomit the sandwich back up again.

"The meeting with the Chairman is at half past four this afternoon. You're to go straight to the headmaster's office after your last class."

"It'll be fine," Tyler reassures him. "You'll get off."

Harry nods but doesn't speak.

He seizes during Transfiguration after lunch and claims he feels too bad afterwards to stay in class. McGonagall sends him to the Hospital Wing and says she'll send a note with Cid to Professor Sprout explaining why he's not in Herbology afterwards. He manages to have a short nap that doesn't refresh him much, and then Madam Pomfrey's shaking him awake and telling him it's time to head up to Dumbledore's office.

He feels like he's got lead in his stomach as he trudges up four floors. Snape's waiting for him beside the stone gargoyle, arms folded over his chest and a slight frown on his face, but when he speaks his voice isn't harsh.

"I have a Draught of Peace if you feel you need one."

Harry considers it, but shakes his head. He should have a clear mind for what's about to happen, even if it means listening to the voice trying to convince him to get himself thrown out.

Sirius and James are in the office with Dumbledore. They don't say anything to Snape when he and Harry enter, but James flicks his gaze between them and Harry thinks he's trying to see how similar they are in looks. Harry thinks James looks a lot better than the last time he saw him—he's got more colour in his cheeks now and the shadows under his eyes are much less obvious.

Sirius stands and pulls Harry into a hug.

"We're going to sort this out, alright, kid?"

Harry nods, feeling a little less nervous with Sirius there. It's not much, but it's something.

"Sit down and tell me what happened."

Harry does and when he's finished, James says, "Sounds like this Umbridge woman deserved it for using a Blood Quill on him."

He rubs subconsciously at his collarbone as he says it. Sirius sees the movement and his jaw clenches; James notices, jerks his hand down and doesn't look at him. Harry misses the brief exchange, but Snape and Dumbledore don't.

"Why are you here?" Harry asks. "I don't mind really, but I thought it'd be just Sirius."

"Remus was out,"

Snape sneers. "And you were too scared to be left alone?"

"Severus," Dumbledore scolds.

"When you've spent fourteen years locked in a dungeon, Snape, and six months in a psych ward, then you can comment on my mental state," James says coldly. "Until then, keep your big nose out of it."

"Gentlemen," Dumbledore says warningly, "this is not the time for your petty rivalry."

All three men look like they want to object to his phrasing, but there's a knock at the door and when Harry turns his magical eye on it, the leaden feeling in his stomach gets worse as he sees Umbridge with a man he assumes is the chairman.

Harry's only slightly put at ease by the Chairman's friendly demeanour. He introduces himself as Henry Athelstan and greets each of them with a handshake before taking a seat. The tables holding all the various little instruments have been moved aside, making space for a small circle of chairs and even Dumbledore comes out from behind his desk to sit with them.

"Right," Mr Athelstan begins, "I understand there was a bit of an incident last night. Mr Evans, why don't you begin? Don't be nervous, we're just having a chat, so let's start with why you were in detention..."


	51. Chapter 51

The sound of his wand snapping seems to echo through the room.

The moment Umbridge and Mr Athelstan have left, Snape forces a vial of Draught of Peace into his hand and urges him to drink it. He does just because it's the only thing to do right now that makes sense, and he's never been more grateful to have silence in his head.

Hermione, Neville, Cid, Tyler, and Draco are waiting outside the headmaster's office when Harry leaves with Snape.

"He looks calm," Tyler mutters to Cid. "Why does he look calm when Umbridge looked smug?"

"Shock?"

Draco's the one to ask Harry, "What happened?"

"I've been expelled."

Hermione gasps and lifts both hands to her mouth. Cid swears and Snape pretends not to hear. Tyler curses Umbridge under his breath. Neville's expression is pitying. Draco just looks shocked.

"Why aren't you freaking out?" Tyler asks.

"Draught of Peace," Harry says simply.

At Snape's command, Hermione, Neville, Cid, and Tyler head down to the Great Hall for dinner, but Draco insists on accompanying Harry all the way to Slytherin. Snape's presence is all anyone needs to know what the outcome of the meeting was and whispers break out as Harry crosses the common room and heads for the dorms. Once there, he mechanically starts collecting up his things and putting them away. Without a word, Draco helps.

"You don't have to do that."

"I have to do something," Draco says.

When it's done, Harry stands facing Draco and reaches up to cup his cheek. "Sorry I'll miss your match on Saturday."

"You're going to appeal this, aren't you?"

"Not sure there's much point. Umbridge will never let me back in."

"Umbridge won't be here forever. She'll be gone by the end of the year."

"What makes you say that?"

"She's the Defence teacher," Draco points out. "They never last more than a year."

"You'll have to tell me what she turns out to be. Well," he says when Draco looks puzzled, "Quirrell was host to Voldemort's disembodied spirit, Lockhart was a coward, Remus a werewolf, and Moody a Death Eater in disguise, so you'll have to let me know what she turns out to be."

Draco smiles despite himself. "Speaking of Quirrell, everyone said it was Harry Potter who was involved in what happened to him. Was it?"

"Nope, it was Harry Evans," he replies with a grin that quickly fades. "We should probably break up."

It hurts him to say it. As hesitant as he was about the relationship in the beginning, he definitely doesn't want it to end now. But he can't expect Draco to stay with him when Harry's on the other side of the country and they're hardly going to see each other ever again.

"I'm willing to try a long distance relationship."

Harry smiles sadly. "You already gave up sex for me. We're teenagers, Draco, it's not like we're supposed to last forever."

"But we're supposed to think we are."

"I was never one for idealism. It ends in disappointment too often."

"May I kiss you?"

"Yes."

It's long and deep and Harry thinks they really should have kissed like this before, but Harry deemed it sexual (he shouldn't have, he thinks, because it's really not) and Draco didn't wanted to tempt himself into getting unnecessarily turned on. But neither of them think of that now, just cling to each other, bodies pressed together, Draco's hands in Harry's hair and Harry's hands clutching Draco's robes.

"I don't want to go," he says when the kiss ends, leaving him slightly breathless and unwilling to let go of Draco at all. If not for the Draught of Peace, he thinks he might be crying right now.

"Evans, it—" Snape breaks off after entering, scowls at the two boys' position, then finishes, "it's time to go. Potter and Black are waiting for you in the Entrance Hall."

That makes Draco look up in surprise. "James Potter?"

"Obviously."

Draco continues to look surprised for a moment, then schools his expression. "Right. He's his father. Of course he'd be here."

"You don't have to come up with me," Harry says, reluctantly pulling away from him. "I never told them about us and you probably don't want to see James."

"I... don't know, but he probably won't want to see me."

Harry nods. He bends to grab the end of his trunk with one hand, Wishing it to be lightweight as he lifts it, then looks at Draco again. "Well... bye, Draco."

Instead of echoing the sentiment, Draco gestures to Harry's left eye. "You should put the blue one in. Umbridge can't tell you not to wear it now."

Harry smiles. He lifts his free hand, covers his left eye, then lowers it again, removing the glamour.

"I've always had the blue one in."

He kisses Draco one last time, chastely, then turns away and drags his trunk to the door, only to stop, drop the trunk and turn back to him. Snape gives an aggravated sigh and Draco frowns.

"Give me your hand," Harry tells him. Draco does so, looking slightly bemused, and Harry turns it so it sits palm up then lays his own hand against it. Still holding Draco's steady with his left, he slowly lifts his right hand and Draco's face goes from bemused to puzzled to wide-eyed amazement when Harry finally takes his hand away, leaving an intrinsically detailed blue glass butterfly on his palm, as delicate as the real thing and fluttering its wings slightly.

"So you don't forget me."

"Evans, that's..."

"It's unbreakable, too."

Draco can't find a word to express what he thinks of it and settles for saying quietly, "Thank you, Harry."

"See you, Draco."

Sirius and James are standing with Professor McGonagall in the Entrance Hall. James is even more restless than usual, eyes flicking nervously towards the small groups of students who are doing a terrible job of pretending not to stare at him and Sirius. Harry goes over and drops his trunk on the floor by them.

"Can I go say bye to my friends?"

"Of course," McGonagall says, patting him sympathetically on the shoulder.

He goes to Cid and Tyler first, the Slytherin table being nearest to the entrance. The hall goes quiet but not silent, whispers and pointing hands following him. He ignores them, coming to a halt a quarter of the way up the Slytherin table where his two friends are sat. Tyler gets up and Harry thinks he's going to hug him, but to his great surprise the other boy grabs his face in both hands and plants a kiss on his lips.

"I've made it my mission to kiss everyone in our year," he says afterwards while Harry splutters. "Seems this was my last chance so I thought I'd take it. Sorry."

"Wha- uh... it's, um... fine?"

"I'm not kissing you," Cid says, but he stands and gives Harry a hug. "Keep in touch."

"I will."

He doesn't even reach the Gryffindor table. Hermione scrambles up from her seat and runs over, meeting him just by the end of the Hufflepuff table and slinging her arms around his neck.

"I'm going to miss you," she says as Neville gets up and comes over too. Harry hugs her back.

"I'm going to miss you too, Hermione. I'll still write."

"You'd better. I don't care if you're expelled; I'm not losing the first friend I ever had."

He smiles fondly. "Me neither."

He gives her one last squeeze then they break apart and he turns to Neville. "Look after yourself, Neville."

"Me? You're the one that needs to be careful. You're an easier target for You Know Who without Hogwarts' protections."

Harry hasn't even thought of that, but he doesn't linger on it now.

"I'll be alright. See you around, I guess." He holds out his hand, but Neville pulls him into a hug, patting his back once before breaking it.

"See you, Harry."

He start to turn away then pauses, leaning close. "When you finished with Patronus Charms in the D.A.," he murmurs, "I was thinking we—you should try learning a few basic healing spells. I know it's not defence but they're really useful."

Hermione and Neville exchange surprised glances. "We already told people it's over. Without you..."

"No, you have to continue it. It's too important and you guys can run it. Get the others who are good to help out. Cho Chang's not bad, and the Weasley twins are actually pretty good even if they are goofballs."

Umbridge is stalking down from the staff table, clearly unhappy about their whispered conversation and ready to throw Harry out, but before she reaches them, fire flares in the air over the staff table and people shriek in surprise. Umbridge whirls, staring up at the flaming words floating overhead.

_LONG LIVE THE REVOLUTION_.

Harry winks at Hermione and Neville as laughter and cheers fill the hall once people get past their surprise. Reactions among the teachers are mixed, but Dumbledore's got a twinkle in his eye and doesn't make any move to dispel the words. Umbridge spins, face furious as she stalks up to Harry, Hermione, and Neville.

"You!"

"What about me?" Harry asks.

"You did this!"

Harry affects a confused expression. "Hang on, let me get this straight: you're accusing me of casting magic when you personally saw my wand being snapped less than an hour ago? I don't even have the pieces; Sirius does. So how exactly am I supposed to have done that?"

Umbridge's hands tremble with suppressed rage, but she can't argue with his logic. Instead she turns on Hermione and Neville.

"Which of you did this? Tell me or I'll put you both in detention!"

"Neither of them did it, you ugly cow," Harry says, and there are gasps from the people nearest. "What?" he adds challengingly when Umbridge opens her mouth. "I'm not a student here anymore, so you can't punish me for insulting you. You're an ugly, toad-faced bitch and when you die I'm going to be standing alongside hell's denizens and laughing as they give you the justice you deserve."

He leaves to find Sirius lingering at the door, having heard the noise and looked in to see what was going on.

"'Long live the revolution'?"

Harry shrugs. "It was spur of the moment. I couldn't think of anything else."

Sirius laughs, slinging an arm around his shoulder and pulling Harry against his side in a brief hug. "Come on, we're going down to the Three Broomsticks for dinner before we go home."

McGonagall escorts them down to the school gates. James looks a little more comfortable away from prying eyes. When they reach the gates, McGonagall turns to Harry and takes a scroll of parchment from her pocket.

"Mr Evans, I never said anything to you because Professor Dumbledore always refused, but I've felt for a long time that you should have been in the year above. Your skill in practical magic aside, you've always proven yourself well studied in theory, something the other teachers tell me is true of their classes as well as mine."

"Thank you, professor," he says, sincere but a little confused. She holds out the scroll.

"This is a list of the topics covered in all your fifth year classes. It is my belief that with perhaps a few months of focused studying, you would be ready to take your OWLs."

Harry takes the scroll, still confused. "They snapped my wand. And I'm not a student."

McGonagall's face gets the same expression she uses in class when someone doesn't know the answer to an easy question. "You were expelled for misbehaviour, Mr Evans, not illegal activity. Buy another one and contact the Ministry's Department of Education directly. I refuse to let Dolores Umbridge squash the potential of one of the finest young wizards I've ever met. You'll find that other wizarding schools would be perfectly willing—even eager—to accept you as a student. In my personal opinion, you would make a fine addition to any institute of learning and they would be lucky to have you."

He flushes, honestly touched by her words. "I'd have been glad to have you as a Head of House," he tells her, but to his horror she looks as though she's about to cry. She doesn't, thankfully, just sniffs, swallows thickly, and nods.

"Goodbye, Harry."

"Goodbye, professor."

* * *

They get a private booth at the back of the Three Broomsticks. While they're waiting for their meals to be brought to them, Sirius slides a small vial of purple potion across the table.

"Snape said it'd be wearing off soon."

Harry doesn't even hesitate to down the potion. He knows himself well enough to know that when he has to deal with his expulsion, it's not going to be pretty and the patrons of the Three Broomsticks—not to mention Madam Rosmerta, the owner—will hardly appreciate whatever destruction will be wrought by the inevitable magical outburst.

They talk of inconsequential things as they eat. James and Sirius start reminiscing about their school days and trips to Hogsmeade and Harry listens, snorting pumpkin juice up his nose when they make him laugh. He manages to forget, for a while, that he's been expelled and just enjoys a nice meal with his godfather.

They take the Knight Bus home. Harry doesn't like it. For one, it's horribly bumpy and the seats aren't even stuck down, so they slide about with each vomit-inducing turn the bus makes; and secondly, Stan Shunpike, the conductor, immediately notices Harry's scar and started gawping. He's glad when they arrive in Coleford and finally disembark.

Lupin's waiting for them inside and his expression turns instantly sad when he sees Harry.

"I'm sorry," he says sympathetically.

Harry shrugs, dragging his trunk over to the stairs. "I'll manage."

"Draught of Peace," Sirius explains to Remus as Harry starts dragging the trunk upstairs. "Harry, I want you back down here in ten minutes, with a cloak."

"'Kay."

"So he's not actually felt it yet?" Lupin says quietly. Sirius shakes his head.

"I'm going to take him out to the forest to try and keep damage to a minimum."

"Isn't he a little old to be having magical outbursts?" James asks them. "Shouldn't it have settled down by now?"

"He's got a lot more power than most people, James," Lupin says, "and it's nothing like anyone else's magic. We can't apply the normal rules to him."

In his room, Harry dumps his trunk down and shuts and locks his door. He lets Hedwig out of her cage and she immediately goes to the window. She didn't liked the Knight Bus any more than him; he lets her out and watches her fly off then reaches into his pocket and pulls out his wand. He couldn't bare to hand it over to be snapped, so he took the voice's suggestion and duplicated it in the moment he reached into his pocket, drawing out a false replica to hand over to Mr Athelstan. He knows he can never use it again, but he still wants to keep it, so he digs some spellotape from his trunk, opens his desk draw and tapes his wand to the bottom of it.

Harry rages when the potion finally wears off. He screams and shouts and more than a few trees get damaged. Sirius just stands by and watches until the anger burns itself out and Harry drops to his knees and bursts into tears, then Sirius pulls him against his chest and lets him sob. Neither of them are surprised when he has a seizure.

Harry spends the evening sat on the sofa with Volume 7 of _The Complete Encyclopaedia of British Wizarding History_ , a box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans, and Padfoot sitting on his feet.

_So have you thought about what you want to do with yourself now?_

"No, and I don't want to."

_You have to._

"Not right now I don't. I've only just been expelled. I get to have a little time to deal with that and feel miserable before I start thinking about what I'm going to do."

* * *

He's confused the next morning when he wakes up in his bed at home, then he remembers everything that happened the day before and miserably burrows back under the covers to go to sleep again, Kiwi clutched against his chest. She's a small comfort.

He manages to get away with burying himself in books for three whole days before Sirius clears his throat during dinner and asks, "Have you given any thought about what you want to do?"

"No," Harry mutters without looking up from his chicken.

"It's alright," Sirius is quick to reassure him. "You can take some time to think it over. We realise it's a lot to consider."

Much that he'd like to continue to ignore the issue, he knows that it's impractical and the voice is starting to get impatient.

_We have better things to be researching than history you already know. Demons, remember? We have to figure out how to get you out of your deal._

"There might not be a way out," he says with a sigh that evening, lying on his bed and staring at the ceiling.

_MIGHT. How stupid would it be if you died because you didn't work hard enough to find a way to live?_

"How stupid would it be to spend the last two years of my life pouring over books trying to find something that doesn't exist?"

_You LIKE pouring over books. Besides, what else are you going to do? Take your OWLs?_ it sneers.

"Why not?" Harry responds defensively.

_What's the point? You can't do anything with them. You'll be dead before you're able to start working—scratch that, you'll be dead before you even get to take your NEWTs._

"I could take them early, like with the OWLs."

_Oh yes_ , the voice drawls sarcastically. _Great. Lets spend the rest of your life studying to take exams that will serve you absolutely no purpose. Do you think Crowley's going to care if you get five NEWTs? Do you think the demons in hell will torture you less because you're a bookworm who memorised a tonne of crap? Hint: the answer's no._

"Tell me something, will I have to listen to you in hell? Because if not that's a good reason to let myself get eaten."

_You don't mean that. You missed me when I was gone. You'd miss me in hell. I'd be the only good company you'd have._

* * *

"Harry, can I have a word?"

"I haven't decided what I want to do yet," he tells Lupin, looking up from the book he's reading. Lupin smiles briefly.

"It's not about that." He takes a seat on Harry's bed and Harry turns in his desk chair to face him, curious. "Is everything alright? Aside from the obvious worries about your education, I mean."

"Yeah. Why?"

"I just wanted to remind you that we're here for you and if you ever need to talk about anything, we'll listen without judging."

Harry frowns at him. "What's this about?"

"We're just concerned about you, that's all."

"Why?" he pushes. "Are you worried I'm going to do something because I got expelled? Like have a mental breakdown or something?"

"The possibility had occurred to us, yes," he says slowly.

"I'm not crazy!"

"I never said that," Lupin says calmly. "But a shock like this can keep people from thinking straight. It's expected that you'll have trouble adjusting to things. Like I said, I just want to remind you that Sirius and I, and even James, are here for you if you need to talk about anything."


	52. Chapter 52

"What do you think I should do?"

It's been over a week since he was expelled and he still doesn't have a clue what to do with himself, but now he's starting to get depressed about it. He spent a few days in sulky annoyance, insisting that he isn't going to do anything because there was no point, and why should he work to do anything when the government itself conspired to get him kicked out of school?

But that passes, sped on by the voice who spent the entire time viciously insulting him for being pathetic, and now he's just left feeling miserable and lost. The adults have clearly been discussing it, however, because Sirius pauses in the middle of eating dinner to answer immediately.

"We think it'd be a good idea if you tried to get your OWLs."

"Then what?"

"You can apply for a position at another school, although the sooner you do that the better."

"Like Beauxbatons or Durmstrang?"

"Not Durmstrang," Sirius says with a shake of his head. "I wouldn't let you go there if it was the only school on earth. But Beauxbatons is an option, yeah, or there's one in Brazil, Japan, Australia, and the States. There's three over there actually, one in California, one somewhere in the middle I think, and the Salem Witches' Institute."

"I'm not a witch," Harry points out.

"And not everyone killed in the Salem witch trials was female," Lupin reminds him with a smile. "They do accept male students and it is the best magical school in the world."

"They're really far away, though. And I can't speak French or Japanese or... what do they speak in Brazil?"

"Portuguese, I believe," Lupin answers. "The other option is you're home schooled."

"What, by you guys?"

"I don't think I'd be a great teacher," James says, "or Sirius."

"Hey, I'd be a great teacher."

"Maybe if the class was on how to annoy one's teachers," Lupin says dryly, then to Harry he adds, "But no, we'd hire tutors."

"Have you considered what you'd want to take at NEWT level?" James asks. "And what you want to do for a career?"

Harry shrugs, staring at his dinner and suddenly not feeling hungry. It's bad enough thinking of his NEWTs when he knows he'll die before he can take them; thinking about possible career options is even worse.

"Give it some thought," Lupin says gently, noticing his mood dropping. "But I strongly advise taking your OWLs. At the very least, the time spent studying for them will give you a few extra months to consider what you'll do afterwards."

Harry likes the idea of putting off big decisions and he does want to take his OWLs—it'd be nice to accomplish _something_ worthwhile before he dies, even if it is useless to him—so he finally opens the scroll of parchment McGonagall gave him. Each of his subjects is listed with the topics covered most often in the OWLs, plus a note saying that the Department of Education is required to provide mock exams to all OWL level students, including home schooled ones, so be sure to ask about it when he contacts them.

At the end there's also a brief message from McGonagall saying that all correspondence in and out of the school is being monitored, something which makes his heart sink. The thought of Umbridge reading the letters to his friends isn't a happy one—then he hopes his friends have been told, because it'd be a disaster if Hermione, Neville, Cid, or Tyler wrote to him and mentioned the D.A. only for Umbridge to read their letters and find out.

He takes a trip to Diagon Alley with Lupin and James. James is still edgy around large crowds, but the Alley isn't too busy when they get there and they only plan to visit Ollivanders and Flourish and Blotts. As they enter the wand shop, Harry wonders how long it'll take him to find a wand this time, given that he felt like he went through half the shop last time. He hasn't mentioned to his guardians that he still has his original wand; Sirius gave him the broken pieces of the fake one and Harry vanished them without a thought.

"Ah, Mr Evans. I did wonder if I'd be seeing you again. I was sorry to hear about what happened."

Harry just shuffles uncomfortably—the expulsion of the Boy Who Lived made the papers, unsurprisingly—and is glad when Ollivander turns to James and Lupin.

"Mr Lupin. Red oak, dragon heartstring. A very resilient wand."

"Yes, sir."

"Mr Potter, it's good to see you. Mahogany, eleven inches, quite pliable, I recall."

James nods, looking a little startled that Ollivander remembers and uncomfortable when Ollivander watches him for a long moment before turning back to Harry.

"Let me see what I can do for you... quite the tricky customer, as I recall," he muses as he starts pulling boxes from his shelves. "Curious wand that chose you in the end, I must say."

"It was?" Harry asks as Ollivander brings over a pile of boxes. "Why?"

Ollivander pauses in the middle of handing Harry a ten inch ash wand with unicorn hair. "I remember every wand I've ever sold, Mr Evans. It just so happens that the phoenix feather in your original wand came from a bird who gave one other feather for my use. It's curious that that wand chose you," he says, eyes flicking to the unconcealed scar on Harry's forehead, "when its brother gave you that scar."

_Well now that_ is _curious._

"Oh," Harry says. "Um... I didn't know wands could have brothers."

"Oh yes. Cores which come from the same source create brother wands and when used against each other, they'll cancel one another out and, if forced to battle, cause _priori incantatem_."

"The reverse spell effect? Why?"

"I'm not entirely sure," Ollivander says, "but perhaps, like many brothers, they simply do not wish to bring harm to each other. Now, gives this a wave..."

Once again he seems to go through half the shop, but instead of eventually finding one that suits him, Ollivander considers Harry thoughtfully.

"If I may, Mr Evans, I realise you're quite eager to have a wand again, but are you in dire need of one immediately or would you be able to wait a short while? A month, perhaps."

"Um... I guess I can wait. Why?"

"I think it might be prudent to custom make a wand. I don't often do it but sometimes a wizard requires it. I recall that, when I inspected your wand for the Triwizard tournament, it was unusually worn and it seems to me that a more tailored wand might be suited to you. Perhaps with... might I ask, and without prejudice, are the rumours of you being a Parselmouth true?"

"Yes," Harry says warily.

"As I said, I enquire without prejudice, but snake scales are occasionally used as wand cores. I don't use them, but I think for you I might make the exception. Possibly even a basilisk scale... tricky to obtain, but... yes, I think... combined with acacia..."

"Professor Snape has basilisk scales," Harry says, quite taken with the idea of a custom made wand. "Or he did a few years ago. He might still have some and he'd probably sell you a few." He pauses, wondering if he should say his next bit but deciding to go ahead, "If you mentioned it's for me, he'd probably definitely give you some."

"Is that so? Well I will certainly contact him. I will send you an owl when I'm done; you can expect it in a month or so, no more than two."

As they leave the shop, Lupin remarks, "So you won't acknowledge Snape as your father, but you will use him when it suits your purposes?"

"Why not? He seemed to think that parents are only good for getting material objects for their kids; why shouldn't I?"

"What do you mean?" James asks, frowning, but Harry shakes his head.

"It doesn't matter. He's a bastard; I don't want to talk about him."

In Flourish and Blotts Harry picks up _The Standard Books of Spells, Grade 5_ and an Arithmancy textbook for his OWL studies, but also can't resist a recently released book on the sixteenth century vampire uprising which claims to have new evidence on how it began.

"Now what are you looking for?" Lupin asks exasperatedly when Harry continues to browse the shelves.

"Stuff on demons."

"I'm fairly certain the OWLs don't contain anything about demons."

"It's a personal project I've been working on, but the Hogwarts library doesn't have that much on them, even in the restricted section."

"Why do you want to know about demons?" James asks him, carrying a book on Quidditch under his arm.

"Like I said, just a personal project. I read about them and got curious."

He finds one about the classification of demons, which is useful but not really what he's after, and he's forced to agree when the voice in his head points out that the kind of thing he's searching for probably won't be found in a shop like Flourish and Blotts and insults him for not realising as much himself. He wonders if there's a book store in Knockturn Alley, but he doesn't think Lupin and James will let him go down there.

Lupin notices James slowing as they pass Quality Quidditch Supplies on their way back to the Leaky Cauldron and suggests they go inside.

"I missed Quidditch," James says as they browse the store. "I used to love flying."

"You should get a broom," Harry suggests. "I've got one. We could go flying together."

_That's cute. Some nice step-daddy/step-child bonding. You're adorable. Really._

James looks at him in surprise. "You want to do that?"

"Sure. I like flying but I'm not allowed to on my own because of my seizures so I hardly ever get a chance. Here." He takes James' hand and pulls him over to the wall holding display models of various brooms. "The Firebolt's still the best," he says, pointing to it, "but Draco says the Nimbuses are pretty good, and Cid's got a Cleensweep which he says is great, and it looks like they've got a new model out."

"Draco Malfoy? Are you friends with him?"

Harry tenses, having spoken without thinking. He glances up at James nervously. "He didn't know about you. Him or his mother, they had no idea. It was—"

"I know," James interrupts, looking back to the brooms. "Lucius never told them. I was only asking."

Harry looks around for Lupin, hoping for a little help, but he's over by the counter idly looking through a rack of keyrings.

"So, um... you... you don't mind that I'm friends with Draco?"

"It's not really my place to disapprove of your friends."

"Yeah but... I guess I thought you'd be angry or something."

"I'm not. Which do you think I should get?"

"I don't know."

"What do you have?"

"A Firebolt, but it's kind of a waste when I don't use it so much and it's designed for Quidditch more than just flying around, so I guess it depends what you want."

They leave the shop twenty minutes later, James carrying a brand new Nimbus 2001 and looking pleased. As soon as they get home, Harry rushes up to his room to grab his Firebolt.

"You two be alright on your own?" Sirius asks James as he unwraps the broom in the dining room.

"I'll look after him, Sirius."

"I'm worried about you too, Prongs. It's the first time you've left the house without me or Remus."

"We're only going flying. We'll be fine."

"Alright, I'm just checking. Make sure you keep the pair of you invisible," Sirius says to Harry as he comes in. "The last thing we need is to get in trouble for being seen flying by Muggles."

"They'll never see a thing," Harry assures him, then to James says, "Ready?"

"Ready."

James is hesitant at first, keeping slow alongside Harry, but it doesn't take him long to reacquaint himself with being on a broom and before long he's zooming about, flying circles around Harry, who can't help but grin at the obvious joy on James' face.

* * *

The Department of Education responds with information about the OWLs surprisingly quickly. As well as mock exams for all his subjects, there's a letter explaining that if he's prepared to take the OWLs in June, then he can do so as a visitor at Hogwarts alongside the rest of the fifth years. Otherwise he'll have to wait until August after the Hogwarts students' exams have been marked and their results sent out. He starts studying harder and longer, determined to take and pass them in June. Not only does he want to prove that he can, but he doesn't want to miss the opportunity to see his friends.

A few days later, he wakes up and finds an envelope on his desk. There's no news articles this time, just the card with the Dark Mark and a short message: _I can teach you things Hogwarts never could._

"I think we should put a Fidelius Charm on the house," Sirius says later as the four of them sit around the dining room table, still in pyjamas, the card at the centre.

James shakes his head. "No."

"James, there's Death Eaters sneaking into our _house_. Fidelius might be the only thing that can keep this Assistant fucker out."

"And it'll keep _us_ in. I'm not being locked up again."

"It's not locking us up, James," Lupin tries to reassure him. "It's a safety precaution, that's all."

"It's a cage. You guys haven't been trapped in a Fidelius charmed house; I have. I'm not doing it again."

"What if next time it's not just the Assistant?" Sirius says, starting to get angry. "Are you going to keep refusing it when he brings his friends with him—brings _Lucius_? Or Voldemort himself?"

James flinches at the name and seems to shrink in on himself, looking away. Lupin puts a calming hand on Sirius' arm.

"I don't want to be trapped in, either," Harry says. "I want to be able to go flying and stuff."

"You will," Lupin says to him and James. "This isn't like when you went into hiding during the first war. This is just to keep the Assistant and anyone else out, but you don't have to stay stuck up inside all the time."

"Then what's the point of putting a Fidelius up at all?" James retorts. "This Assistant bloke can just as easily get to him outside the house so if you're trying to protect him, it should be all the time."

"He does have a point about that, Remus," Sirius says, and Harry sits up straighter.

"You're not keeping me locked in. I can look after myself, you know."

"He could have killed you last night, kid. He was in and out of here without any of us knowing and Moony's a light sleeper. If anyone should have heard, it was him."

"The Assistant might not even have been here," Harry tries. "I can teleport things between places; he probably can too."

"He still knows where we live. He could turn up here any time and hurt any of us."

"I doubt he's going to do that. Voldemort wants me working for him; breaking into my home and attacking any of you is hardly going to convince me."

Sirius doesn't look convinced.

_If they're so desperate to keep the Assistant out, you could put up some wards. A little Wishing and we can probably keep even him out._

"Oh!"

All three adults look at him and Harry echoes the voice's suggestion. "It's not the Fidelius so we don't have to stay inside, but it's some extra protection."

"Will that work?" Lupin asks. "Even if you're asleep or away?"

"It should do, as long as I word it right."

"I'd rather rely on something we know will work," Sirius says.

"You don't know the Fidelius will work," Harry counters, even though he's pretty sure it will. He can't see how even his magic could get him into a place hidden like that.

"I think maybe we need to take some time to think about it," Lupin suggests.

"I don't," James mutters.

"We've got a month before he'll show up again anyway," Harry says with a shrug. "They've all come at the end of each month."

* * *

Hermione's almost in tears as she and Neville are hauled off to the headmaster's office after Umbridge discovers the D.A. It doesn't even make her feel better to see Marietta Edgecombe, Cho Chang's friend who always looked reluctant about the D.A., with the word SNEAK written across her face in pimples, the result of the curse Hermione put on the parchment on which they signed their names. She can't bare the thought of getting expelled.

* * *

"Harry! Can you come down here please, we have a visitor."

Harry swivels his magical eye to look towards the dining room and is surprised to see none other than Dumbledore sat at the table with a cup of tea and Sirius, Lupin, and James sat with him. He quickly finishes the sentence he's writing and heads downstairs, his shock turning to suspicion as he wonders why Dumbledore would be here at almost ten o'clock at night. Lupin has an expression of mixed disapproval and amusement, Sirius' is almost proud, and James, as usual, is merely restless, though Harry thinks he looks just a little approving.

"Professor," he greets, hovering in the doorway.

"Hello, Harry, it's good to see you again."

"Am I in trouble?"

"Have you done something that would get you in trouble?"

"I don't think so."

"Then you're quite safe," Dumbledore assures him with a smile. "Would you join us?"

"What's this about?" he asks, moving over to sit beside Sirius.

"Earlier this evening," Dumbledore begins, "I found myself quite unexpectedly a fugitive from the hands of the law."

"Oh," Harry says. "Um... have you come to ask Sirius for advice on avoiding capture?"

Lupin looks a little disapproving of his comment, but Sirius gives a bark of laughter and James smiles, as does Dumbledore.

"I shall certainly utilise the opportunity while I'm here, but no, that was not the primary reason for my visit. I'm sure you're wondering why exactly I am wanted for arrest by the Ministry."

"Yeah, but I also know that I can be charged with aiding and abetting a fugitive so really, the less I know the better."

"A very wise attitude, but I'm sure the knowledge of my crime will do you no harm. You see, the Ministry is under the belief that I have attempted to create an army of students for the purpose of destabilising the Ministry and overthrowing Cornelius Fudge."

For several long moments Harry and Dumbledore merely stare at each other. Dumbledore's expression is perfectly serene and Harry's trying to decide exactly how to react to such an absurd idea, before remembering that although he silently considers D.A. to stand for Defence Association, the rest of its members do not.

"It wasn't my idea," he says. "I objected to the entire thing, including the name."

"You're quite lucky that particular objection was over-ruled then," Dumbledore remarks, "otherwise your friends would have been joining you in expulsion. I was able to convince Cornelius that I was solely responsible for the club and leave you friends blame free."

Harry nods understandingly. "I'm sorry they're trying to arrest you," he says sincerely, but he knows Dumbledore can hear his unspoken words: 'but I'd rather you than them'.

"Oh, not to worry. Whilst I certainly don't enjoy leaving Hogwarts under the command of Dolores Umbridge, I do find being a fugitive gives one a refreshing amount of personal time."

"Speak for yourself," mutters Sirius.

"I still don't quite understand why you're here," Harry says to Dumbledore.

"I came to see Sirius, Remus, and James, but I wished to congratulate you on taking your education into your own hands, express some exasperation at your insistence on breaking the rules even after my warning, and say how nice it is to finally have our suspicions confirmed regarding the reason for the meeting you held in the Hog's Head pub in October."

"Well, thanks, but I meant it when I said it wasn't my idea. It was Hermione and Neville's. I just sort of got roped into it. As for the rule breaking, blame Sirius' bad influence."

"Hey!"

"You did say you'd taken on the hard job of being a terrible influence on the next generation."

"When did I ever say that?"

"Two years ago," Lupin reminds him, "when we gave him the Marauders' Map."

Sirius thinks about it then shakes his head. "I don't remember, so it didn't happen."

"Didn't you say that to Melissa Hodgins in sixth year when you got drunk and snogged her best friend?" James says. "That mousy girl. Jenna, I think."

"And it worked back then."

"No it didn't. She slapped you."

"Who did?"

"Both of them."

"Well, I don't remember that so it didn't happen either."

"Remus tells me you're planning to take your OWLs," Dumbledore says to Harry, who nods.

"Professor McGonagall suggested it and it seemed as good of an idea as any."

"I'm sure you'll do very well in them."

"Then why didn't you let me skip a year? McGonagall said she asked you to let me move up."

"Indeed she did, but I thought you wouldn't appreciate the attention it would bring you. You have always shown a dislike of anything that makes you stand out."

Harry frowns, but he can't argue with that.

"It's been nice to see you again, Harry," Dumbledore continues, "but it is getting quite late for young men."

He recognises that for the dismissal it is so he gets up to leave, then pauses in the doorway to look back.

"Sir, if you're a fugitive, who's the head teacher now? Is it McGonagall?"

"Unfortunately, I rather suspect it will be Dolores Umbridge."

_You're never getting back into Hogwarts._


	53. Chapter 53

"I think I'd rather stay here."

"Are you sure?" Lupin asks Harry. "I don't want you to feel uncomfortable."

"I don't want to stay in Grimmauld Place. That house is creepy."

"Can't argue with that," Sirius mutters. "But you can stay with someone from the Order if you like. Molly and Arthur probably wouldn't mind having you for a few days."

Harry shakes his head. "It's okay. I'll be fine. The door'll be locked and there's unbreakable charms on it, right? And you're still taking the Wolfsbane, aren't you, Remus?"

"There is, and I am. We'll put Silencing Charms up as well, and James will stay human so if you need anything go to him."

Harry nods. "It'll be fine then. I'll be okay."

Despite their reassurances, he Wishes for Sirius and Lupin's room to be unbreachable by force and locks his own door, but at sunset curiosity hits him and he focuses his magical eye on their room. He watches Lupin transform with a morbid fascination. It looks painful, his body lengthening, hair sprouting from his skin, limbs jerking as his bones crack and reform. Harry almost imagines he can hear it. When it's over, Moony stretches, gives a little shake, then goes over to Padfoot, who sat watching the whole thing, and presses their noses together. Padfoot's tail wags furiously and Harry turns his gaze away.

* * *

He takes the mock OWL exams in the dining room, scribbling away under the watch of James or Sirius or Remus, an hourglass timer on the side, and then his three guardians mark the papers with the answer booklets that came with them. Arithmancy and Astronomy prove to be his weakest subjects, which doesn't surprise him, but he also finds he needs to spend more time on Herbology and Potions.

He gets an owl from Ollivander shortly before the end of April saying his wand is ready and he begs to go to Diagon Alley that same day. Sirius takes him and they go straight to Ollivander's, Harry almost bouncing with anticipation.

"Here you are," Ollivander says, presenting the wand to him. "Acacia, eleven and a half inches—just a touch longer than your last one—with a core of basilisk scale."

 _Oh yes,_ purrs the voice as Harry takes the wand, _yes, I like this one_.

When he waves it, an entire swarm of butterflies of every variety come pouring out the end and with another flick, they vanish.

"It's _perfect_."

"Hm," Ollivander says, looking satisfied. "That'll be ten galleons, six sickles."

"You can finally show me your Patronus Charm," Lupin says when they get home and Harry proudly shows off his new wand. Harry quickly agrees, eager for any excuse to try it out.

" _Expecto Patronum!_ "

Lupin smiles proudly as the silver fox bounds around their living room. Sirius grins and gives Harry a one armed hug. "Nice work."

"What does yours look like?" Harry asks him. "Will you show me?"

"Alright. Get rid of yours then, I'm not sharing the spotlight."

Sirius' is a large dog, just like his Animagus form. Lupin goes next and his is a wolf. James goes last, but the spell fails on his first try. Lupin's expression turns pitying and Sirius' angry, as does James' but his anger is aimed at himself rather than Lucius.

"James," Lupin begins, but James cuts him off.

"No. I can do it. Just..."

He closes his eyes, inhaling deeply and letting it out slowly. The others watch silently as James repeats the action a few more times then, without opening his eyes, says gently, " _Expecto Patronum._ "

"You did it!"

James opens his eyes at Harry's pleased exclamation and stares at his Patronus. Lupin clears his throat. Sirius is trying not to laugh.

"A _peacock_?" James cries indignantly. "What the hell?!"

Sirius sniggers. Lupin treads on his foot.

"It's very majestic," Lupin tries, but James is having none of it.

"It's a _peacock_. What happened to my stag?"

Lupin's expression turns sad. "They can change over time, Prongs, you know that. Our life experiences—"

"Fuck our life experiences," James snaps, jerking his wand then turning and stalking towards the stairs before the peacock has even vanished.

"Is he okay?" Harry asks worriedly, magical eye watching James storm up to his room, normal one flicking between Sirius and Lupin.

"He'll be alright," Lupin assures him, but he doesn't look very convincing.

"Is his Patronus a peacock because of Lucius?"

Lupin and Sirius glance at each other. "A peacock is the kind of thing I can imagine Lucius as," Sirius admits reluctantly.

"But I thought Patronuses took the form that best represents our hearts."

"They do usually," Lupin agrees, "but other things can affect it too sometimes. James was very strongly attached to Lucius and even though he's—"

Harry cries out suddenly, cutting Lupin off. "He's cutting himself!"

Lupin's the fastest, taking the stairs two at a time and bursting into James' room, Sirius close behind and Harry coming after them. James is knelt on the floor, shirt discarded, a knife in one hand. He's viciously cutting the skin under his collarbone, hacking across the name scarred underneath, and he fights when Lupin tries to take the knife from him.

"Sirius, call Sam!"

Sirius turns and sprints back downstairs. Lupin wrestles the knife from James' fingers and tosses it aside then has to grab both James' wrists when he tries to hit him. Angry tears drip down James' face as he struggles to free himself.

"I have to get him out!" he half screams and half sobs. "I have to get him out, I have to get him out, I have to get him out..."

He trails off into sobs, still trying to jerk his hands free, but Lupin keeps hold and says nothing.

When Sam arrives, she spends half an hour talking to James and it's agreed that he'll spend a few nights at Saint Mungo's. When he's packed a bag and left, Sirius finds Harry in his room, sat cross legged on the bed with Kiwi in his lap.

"You alright, kid?"

Harry nods, smoothing down Kiwi's fur. Sirius goes over and sits beside him.

"Sure?"

He nods again, but leans against Sirius' side. "Why did he do that? I thought he was better."

Sirius sighs. "He's getting better, but you've got to remember James spent fourteen years locked up. That's not something you just get over, even with psychiatric help. It's difficult and takes time, and there'll always be moments when it's harder."

"You spent twelve years locked up. Do you ever hurt yourself?"

"No, but I didn't spend twelve years being tortured and manipulated into turning against everything I believe in."

"Dementors are torture."

"They are," Sirius agrees, "and I'm the last people who'll say Azkaban isn't horrible, but what I went through is a lot different to what James went through, and we deal with it differently."

* * *

_No._

"I'm not listening to you."

_Yes, you are. You're not doing it._

"You don't get an opinion."

_Oh yes I do. You tell them and I'll make the rest of your short life a misery._

"Is that supposed to convince me not to? Because it's doing the opposite."

_You need me. You want me. You missed me when I was gone, remember? You tell them and they'll do their best to get rid of me forever._

"Good. I don't want to be crazy."

_You think getting rid of me will stop you being crazy? You were crazy long before I came along. No sane person would sell their soul to a demon. No sane person would have stayed with the Dursleys as long as you did. A sane person would have run away a lot sooner, magic or no. I'm not the reason you're crazy, I'm just along for the ride._

"Either way I'm getting rid of you. I'm telling them."

_They'll lock you up. They'll toss you in Saint Mungo's with your crazy step-daddy. You won't be able to take your OWLs while you're shut in a padded room._

That makes Harry pause. He doesn't think they'll lock him in a padded room, but they'll probably stop him taking his OWLs.

_They'd take away your magic as well. You remember what that Sam woman said the first time we visited Saint Mungo's—patients aren't allowed wands. What's the bet someone lets slip that you can do wandless magic and they strap some magic suppressants on you?_

"They wouldn't do that. It'd kill me."

_It took almost six months to get that bad. All they'd have to do is occasionally let you out. They'd probably lock you in a padded cell for a little while, let you recharge and then snap the suppressants right back on again. Is that what you want? To spend the last two years of your life locked up? Restricted and controlled like some sort of rabid animal?_

"It wouldn't be like that."

_Wouldn't it?_

* * *

As the end of the month draws nearer, the issue of the Assistant is brought up again and eventually Sirius and Lupin agree to let Harry try Wishing to keep the Assistant out. He tests it on them first, getting them to leave the house then try and come in, but they're physically incapable of stepping onto the front lawn from the street, like an invisible wall is keeping them out. Harry's pretty sure it'll keep working even while he's asleep, but he still stays up until past two in the morning, studying while he listens and keeps an eye out for the Assistant. He never sees him.

The Assistant can't get past Harry's protections against him, but he's fairly certain that with a little time and the proper application of force, he could bring it down. He doesn't bother though; it would only inspire them to put up better protections, possibly even resorting to the Fidelius, which _would_ keep him out indefinitely. So he gets creative instead.

There's no envelope when Harry wakes up late the next morning, but while he's sat at the dining room table having breakfast, there's a knock at the front door.

"Are we expecting anyone?" Lupin asks with a frown, rising from his chair.

"It's the postman," Harry says, looking with his magical eye.

"The _Muggle_ postman?"

"Yeah."

He follows Lupin to the front door, peering around him as a glassy-eyed postman hands them a single white envelope without saying a word, turns, and walks down the path back to his van. Already knowing what they're going to see, they look at the front of the envelope. Sure enough there's three words written on the front: _For Harry Evans_.

"Well," Lupin says, "he's innovative, I'll give him that. At least we know your Wishing works against him. Open it then."

_This world could be ours, Harry. With your power and my skill, we could put every foul Muggle in their place. We could right the wrongs of this world. Under my rule you could be reinstated at Hogwarts if you so desired, a Hogwarts reformed and made better, with no more useless teachers. There would be classes dedicated to magics Albus Dumbledore and the Ministry would have you never know even exist. Join me, Harry, and I can teach you so many things._

_I really think you should reconsider this offer_ , the voice says. _Voldemort has fifty years of studying magic. He might just have the answers we need; at the very least, he can probably point us in the right direction. I'm sure him and his Death Eaters know all the best places to get the sort of information we're after._

Harry thinks that might be true, but he also thinks that if Voldemort ever finds out he sold his soul to a demon, he'll do everything he can to make sure Harry _doesn't_ find out how to escape his deal. He doesn't believe for one minute that Voldemort would pass up the chance to see Harry killed, no matter how sincere his offers might be.

James is gone for a week, but he comes back calmer and seeks out Harry when he's put his things away.

"I'm sorry if I scared you before."

"It's okay," Harry tells him. "It must be hard dealing with what happened."

"Some days more than others, yeah. But I don't want you to be scared of me or anything. I'd miss flying with you if you decided you didn't like spending time with me."

"I won't. I like flying with you," he says with an honest smile that James returns. "I'm due a study break in fifteen minutes. We could go then if you want."

James nods. "I'd like that."

Harry's surprised to get a letter from Fred and George Weasley a few days later saying they've left Hogwarts and opened their joke shop, and inviting him to come visit. It's the first letter he's received from anyone at Hogwarts; he hopes it's because his friends have also been told that mail in and out of the school is being monitored and that they realise it's why he hasn't written to them either.

All three Marauders come with him to visit Weasley Wizard Wheezes, keen to see what they've come up with. Harry admits he's quite impressed with their selection of items; they clearly put his money to good use and he spends a while browsing the store. The Skiving Snackboxes look particularly good and would be great if he was still in Hogwarts.

"Our best sellers," George tells him, sidling up alongside him. "Sold a lot before we left Hogwarts."

"These what you used on Draco at the start of the year?"

"Yes, but as you can see they're perfectly safe."

"Now they are," Harry says. "So why'd you two leave?"

"We didn't like the new management."

"Things were pretty nasty with Umbridge as headmistress?"

"We had our fun, but she's cracking down. That little message Hermione left when you got expelled though? That inspired a nice little rebellion."

"Hermione?"

_Are you really surprised she's getting all the credit?_

"She denies it but we all know it was her. How are you doing anyway?"

Harry shrugs. "Not bad. I'm taking my OWLs next month."

George frowns. "You were a fourth year."

"Smart fourth year."

"Must be," George agrees. "So, you're not leaving here empty handed right? Have you seen our fireworks collection? Or the Headless Hats—great innocent fun..."

"What are those?"

"Pygmy puffs," George tells him as Harry peers at the cage of small, fluffy things rolling around and emitting high pitched squeaks. "Miniature puffskeins. For the girls, really."

"Don't be sexist. They're kinda cute. Do they only come in pink and purple? Aren't puffskeins normally yellow?"

"Totally safe permanent dye, but now who's being sexist?"

"Hey, boys can like pink and purple all they want, but I'd love a blue one. Or even red. Mind you Hedwig might try to eat it... But you know, more colours might expand your market."

"We'll see how well they sell before we branch out on colours, but for our benefactor I think we can probably manufacture a blue one for you."

"Really? Cool, thanks!"

He leaves with a Basic Blaze Box of Weasleys' Wildfire Whiz-Bangs and a couple of Extendable Ears, all free of charge—the Twins insisted given that it's his money which gave them the chance to open their shop in the first place. Sirius has a box from the trick foods section of the store and Harry makes a mental note to be careful about everything he eats from now on.

* * *

The Assistant's playing a game of poker with Lucius, Bellatrix, and Dolohov when he feels Yaxley Apparate into the house. Before he's even thought about it, he's on his feet, dropping his cards and rushing out the room, tearing down the stairs so fast he stumbles and falls, but catches himself with magic and flies the rest of the way down, only to reach the bottom and find the sitting room door firmly closed. It takes every bit of self control he has not to barge in anyway, knowing it'll only earn him a _Crucio_ if he enters Voldemort's sanctum without invitation. He stands outside, bouncing on the balls of his feet with impatience, unsure just how long he can restrain himself, silently cursing Voldemort for ever transferring his Bond in the first place, and uselessly wishing that the bloody thing would ease up already. If he was allowed to keep close contact to Yaxley after it was first transferred, it would have already, but the forced separation has only dragged out the time it's taken for the need to be with him to lessen.

"Can I assume James is this distressed?"

The Assistant doesn't even glance at Lucius, eyes fixed on the door in front of him, but he knows him well enough, or at least other versions of him, to know he'll have a mocking smirk on his face. He doesn't care. "No. You spent long enough in close proximity that your separation won't have hit him too hard. He might be a touch restless and it'll get worse, but it'd take a while for it to get this bad."

"You still don't know who your Master is, do you?"

"What's it to you, Lucius?"

"Merely making conversation, Assistant."

"Go do it with someone else. I'm not interested right now."

When the door finally swings open, he stalks inside immediately, ignoring the seated Voldemort, and knowing in the back of his mind that he shouldn't because one does not simply ignore Voldemort, to go straight to where Yaxley stands, dropping to one knee before him and bowing his head.

"Master," he murmurs, voice full of unbridled relief and pleading and need, and when Yaxley lays a hand gently on his hair and says softly, "Harry," a shudder runs through him and he lets out a small sigh.

"Assistant."

He turns only his upper body, but bows his head lower to Voldemort. Yaxley's hand moves down to settle on the back of his neck, his fingers cool against the Assistant's skin and his thumb rubbing in small circles.

"My lord."

"Next time you enter a room you will address me first."

"Yes, my lord. I apologise for my indiscretion."

"I am growing impatient of waiting for Harry Evans to respond to me, Assistant. Tell me what it will take to bring him to my side."

"My lord, I've already told you what I know. I gave you everything I could when you first asked me."

"Don't lie to the Dark Lord, Harry," Yaxley orders and the Assistant can't help the small whimper that leaves him, because that's an order he never wanted to hear. Worse still, one of those words is his Trigger. He knows it because there's a sensation like his rib cage has been torn open and he chokes on the instinctive urge to say he's not lying. Silently he curses his original Lucius Malfoy for Shrouding his Trigger and curses him again for making it something that is apparently common enough that Yaxley will use it idly.

Voldemort notices his reaction. He rises from his chair and slowly draws his wand out. Yaxley's hand slips from the Assistant's neck.

"Tell me what it will take to bring Harry Evans to my side," Voldemort repeats coldly.

"Threatening his loved ones might work."

"Might."

"I don't know him well, my lord. I can only guess his reactions from other similar timelines."

"What else? You must know something. Everybody has one thing for which they will give anything. What would Harry sell his soul for?"

"Magic."

"He has magic in multitudes. What else?"

The Assistant says nothing. His hands shake.

"Answer the question, Assistant."

"Nothing," he answers Voldemort. "The only thing he sells his soul for is magic. It's always magic, ever since my original timeline."

Silence follows that as Voldemort considers the words, a tense silence that holds a promise of pain to come when Voldemort's got everything he wants from him and inflicts punishment for not offering it up sooner.

"Sell it to whom?" Voldemort asks coldly.

"Crowley. A crossroads demon."

* * *

"When else have you lied to me?"

The Assistant coughs, spitting blood on the floor and groaning, the muscles in his abdomen clenching painfully and his lungs stabbing with every short breath as they expand against broken ribs.

"D-day I swore l-loyalty," he manages to answer. "P-Pettigrew helped me e-escape. And my B-Bond. Was t-transferred before. My last M-Master was Bellatrix Lestrange."

His muscles tighten further, forcing his body to curl in on itself and he cries out painfully.

"What about when you were supposed to retrieve the prophecy? Who smashed it?"

"H-Harry," the Assistant gasps. "Harry smashed it."

"You're lying."

He shakes his head, whimpering. "Harry s-smashed it. Harry smashed it. Harry smashed it. Harry smashed—"

"Shut up," Voldemort snarls, and then the Assistant's muscles unclench and he gives a relived whimper, going limp on the floor, only for panic to spread through him when he hears Voldemort speak another curse and blood begins to drip from his nose, ears, eyes, and mouth.

* * *

Later, he wakes up in Yaxley's bed, a metal collar around his throat and a chain locking it to the headboard. There's dark hair falling into his eyes and it's all he needs to know the collar's inscribed with magic suppression runes. He's been stripped, but he's clean and warm under the covers, though still aching with the after pains of the torture. The Bond tells him that Yaxley's not in the apartment with him, but he's not so far away as he normally is. He knows there's nothing to gain from worrying about what might be in store for him, so he closes his eyes again, presses his face to the pillow, and drifts back to sleep with the comforting smell of his Master filling his nose.

The next time he wakes, Yaxley's sat beside him, leant against the headboard with a pair of reading glasses perched on his nose as he looks through a file stamped with the Ministry's emblem. There are a few others spread across the bed and he's got a quill in one hand and an inkpot beside the bed.

"Do you need to use the bathroom?" Yaxley asks without looking at him.

"Not right now."

Yaxley dips his quill in the ink then scribbles something on the file he's perusing. "The Dark Lord ordered you be stripped of your powers for a week."

"So you chained me to your bed? Kinky."

"I had to go into the Ministry; I didn't want you wandering off."

"I'm quite content to remain in your bed, particularly if you're going to be in it too," he murmurs, moving his hand over and sliding it up Yaxley's thigh.

Yaxley puts down his file, reaches under the cover to grab the Assistant's wrist and shove his hand away, then picks up the file again, all without saying a word or even looking at him. The Assistant takes it in stride, rolling onto his back and lifting his arms to link his fingers behind his head.

"Don't know what you're missing."

"You're not my type."

"Mmm, bit too old for your tastes, aren't I?"

Yaxley says nothing.

"You know I can make myself look like anyone... of any age."

Yaxley finally looks at him, considering him for a moment then looking back to his file, "As I said, the Dark Lord has ordered you stripped of your powers for a week."


	54. Chapter 54

When the Assistant's week is up, Yaxley removes the collar and watches the Assistant's face morph to the usual blond then takes the collar to his dresser and slips it into his top drawer. When he turns back to the Assistant, he's sat on the edge of the bed, rubbing a hand over his face and magicking away the hair covering his jaw as he does.

"Show me what you looked like at fifteen."

The Assistant glances at him and obliges, his face morphing into one much younger, hair turning dark again, body shrinking to the lithe figure of a teenager who's well fed but well exercised. Yaxley goes over, tucking a finger under his chin and lifting his head to inspect him.

"Surprisingly attractive for the son of Severus Snape."

"Malfoy and Black blood help anyone look good. Potter genes don't hurt either and my mother was beautiful. I was adopted," he adds when Yaxley looks confused. "Twice. I assumed the Dark Lord had told you."

"He didn't. Lucius adopted you?"

"And Narcissa, hence the Malfoy and Black blood. That was after my dad died. James Potter adopted me right after I was born, but he died in my original timeline as well."

"Then Severus raised you, correct?"

"Yes. Died when I was six."

"How?"

"Potions accident."

"I've never known Severus to fail at his art."

"You've also never known him to raise a child. My timeline was different to this one; the people are—" His Mark burns and his hand twitches, but he finishes his sentence. "The people are different too. He calls; might I be excused to answer his summons?"

Yaxley doesn't respond immediately, cupping the Assistant's cheek and rubbing his thumb along his cheekbone, then he gives a small sigh, drops his hand, and steps back.

"Go."

* * *

There's more talk of putting a Fidelius Charm on the Marauders' home, but James is still against it, more so now Harry's magic has proven capable of keeping out the Assistant, and Harry agrees with him. He can keep people out; the only extra protection the Fidelius would provide is stopping Voldemort's letters reaching him.

Harry starts getting stressed as the month wears on and begins worrying that he's not really ready for the OWLs. More than once he stops in the middle of studying to have a minor panic attack about how he's going to fail and never amount to anything, and his guardians have to sit him down and talk quietly to him until he calms down again.

Once during one of his panic attacks he's ranting to Lupin and accidentally lets slip that he's only got two years to live; for a brief moment he considers answering Lupin's demands to know what he's talking about, but there's such fear in the man's eyes that Harry knows he can't let him or Sirius or James know that he's going to die. Even so, he feels terrible about wiping Lupin's memory.

* * *

The Assistant lays face down on Yaxley's bed, breathing hard, his wrists bloody from the simple handcuffs locking him to the headboard. Yaxley cleans the sweat and mess from him and he shivers slightly as the cool, damp cloth wipes across his skin. He still has the appearance of his teenage self in place; Yaxley hasn't told him to let it drop and he doesn't presume they're entirely finished yet. It's far from the best sex he's ever had—in fact it was pretty awful and if he was with anyone else he'd have put a stop to things early on—but it was with his Master, so the fact that he's had better orgasms from masturbation doesn't change the fact that it was still some of the most intense sex he's ever had. It just makes him want to work on making Yaxley better at it.

He moans and pulls at the handcuffs when Yaxley puts the cloth aside and slowly slides his hands up the Assistant's legs. While the sex may not have been great, it was more rough than he expected and he'd appreciate having his hands freed if they're to continue, not only so that the cuffs don't chafe him right to the bone, but also so he can work on guiding Yaxley into improving his skills.

But he's been ordered not to speak so he can only press his face to the pillow and shudder as Yaxley's hands brush over his skin, slowing as they pass his backside then slipping around to grip his hips tightly. He feels the man bend then lips touch the base of his spine, lingering briefly before Yaxley let's out a small sigh, breath warm against the Assistant's skin and making him shiver, then Yaxley pulls away. The Assistant hears him take his wand from beside the bed then he leans over him and taps the handcuffs. They click open and fall away and the Assistant pulls his arms down, wincing at the ache in his shoulders and rolling onto his side so he can look up at Yaxley, now sitting on the edge of the bed.

"Change your appearance."

The Assistant lets his body return to normal and his facial features slip back to his usual disguise. Yaxley takes one of his hands and lifts it, inspecting his bloody wrist, then his gaze slides along the Assistant's body, lingering on the bites on his throat and the finger-shaped bruises on his hips, a satisfied glint in his eyes.

"You may not heal with magic any injuries inflicted by me, but you can tend to them."

The Assistant nods. Yaxley narrows his eyes slightly, lowering his hand back to the bed, then: "Oh, of course. You may speak."

"Thank you, Master."

Yaxley leaves the room without saying anything more and a few minutes later the Assistant hears the shower start up. He pulls the covers over himself and falls into a light doze until Yaxley returns then watches him dry off and get dressed.

"Go and shower so I can change the sheets."

The Assistant obeys, reluctantly. He'd much rather stay in the warm bed and rest for a while longer, but he can't deny it feels good to stand under a hot spray and let the water ease some of the aches that are starting to spring up in his muscles. His wrists sting as he washes away the dried blood and his left opens up again, streams of pink water trailing down his hand. He ignores it until he gets out, wrapping a towel around his waist then dabbing his arms dry and waving a hand to conjure a tube of antiseptic cream and a roll of bandages, rubbing the cream over his injuries and then wrapping them.

Yaxley's in the living room when the Assistant leaves the bathroom, sat on the sofa with his reading glasses on, a cup of coffee in one hand, a quill in the other, his work files spread across the coffee table, and half an orange on a plate beside him. The Assistant passes through to the bedroom without saying anything and finds his robes laid out on the bed. He dresses, runs his fingers through his hair in lieu of a brush then returns to the living room and shuffles into the space between sofa and coffee table, not sitting but reaching out a hand to rest on Yaxley's head.

"What are you doing?" Yaxley asks, but he doesn't pull away.

"Revelling in the presence of my Master," the Assistant replies distractedly, closing his eyes.

Yaxley opens his mouth to speak again, only for his eyes to suddenly glaze over and his face to go slack.

"I retract the order for you to not lie to the Dark Lord," Yaxley says tonelessly, then blinks slowly, his blue-grey eyes losing their glaze. He shakes his head free of the Assistant's touch and scowls. "I'm working. Stop distracting me."

"Of course, Master. My apologies," the Assistant says, his smug smile unnoticed by the man with no memory of what just occurred.

* * *

The postman brings another envelope at the end of May and Harry tosses it straight in his bin and gets back to studying. There's only a week left until the OWLs and his mood keeps swinging between fierce determination to pass with flying colours and abject despair that he'll fail miserably. Currently he's determined and he's not interested in whatever Voldemort has to say right now.

It's Sirius who pulls the envelope out and opens it, removing the card inside and reading the message inside, a frown spreading across his face as he does.

"Harry, what deal is this talking about?"

"What?"

Sirius puts the card on top of Harry's Herbology book, forcing him to pay attention. Harry sighs, reads it, and turns white.

_I know how to break your deal._

The voice's delight is immediate. _I knew it! I told you! We have to go to him. We have to get this information from him, even if it means signing up to join the Death Eaters._

"What deal is he talking about?"

Harry swallows thickly, licks his dry lips and shakes his head. "I don't know."

"If you're going to lie to me, kid, at least do a convincing job of it."

Harry glances up at him, back down at the card, then vanishes it with merely a thought. "Forget you ever saw this."

Sirius blinks, shakes his head, then looks at Harry. "Sorry, did you say something?"

"No."

Sirius nods. "You should get back to studying. I'm going to check on Remus."

"Okay."

Sirius leaves and finds James lingering in the hallway outside. "Alright, Prongs?"

James nods, watching him move down the hall to his and Lupin's room, quietly pushing the door open and looking in briefly then pulling it closed again.

"Still asleep. You fancy a game of chess?" he says to James, who agrees. They head downstairs and set up the board in the living room. For a while they play mostly in silence, until James asks, "Sirius, Harry's wandless magic—how does it work?"

"Has he not told you?" Sirius replies as he considers the chess board on the floor between them. "He just makes a wish. Calls it Wish Magic."

"So if he just wished for someone to forget something, then they'd forget it?"

"Pretty much. Knight to—" He breaks off, looking up at James. "Are you planning to ask him to make you forget what Lucius did to you?"

James looks surprised at the suggestion, then thoughtful.

"Prongs, no. You can't ask him to do that."

"It wasn't why I asked," James says honestly.

"Then why did you?"

"I think he did it to you."

* * *

"Oh, I almost forgot," Sirius says at dinner that evening, turning to Harry. It's just the two of them; it's the night of the full moon and Prongs is with Moony. "Did the postman come this morning?"

"Yeah. I got rid of the note. It was more trying to convince me Muggles are trash."

"We're supposed to show them to Dumbledore."

"Sorry," he apologises insincerely.

"Keep it next time. I'm going to go swap with James. Don't forget to wash up when you and him have finished eating."

* * *

"You really think Harry fiddled with your memory?" Lupin asks Sirius the next afternoon when Sirius shares James' suspicions. James has taken Harry out flying so they're not worried about him overhearing. "Why?"

"James only heard something about a deal and that Harry told me to forget I ever saw it. I think Voldemort sent something that might have made Harry start seriously thinking about joining him, and he doesn't want us to know about it, but he told me he destroyed whatever came yesterday."

"He might not have. We could search his room."

"I tried a Summoning Spell with no luck."

"And it's not likely either he or Voldemort bothered to protect it against summoning," Lupin says with a sigh. "Are you going to confront him about it?"

Sirius rubs a hand over his face and sighs wearily before admitting, "I don't know. If he has made me forget something, then he'd have no qualms about doing it again if I asked him about it."

"But James and I would realise he'd done it."

"And if he then did it to you two?"

"We don't let him."

"How do you plan to do that? He can do it without even bashing an eyelash, Moony."

"Set up and hide some magic suppression runes."

"He'd hate us."

"He'll be angry, but we're perfectly justified in doing it if he's messing with our memories. Who's to say this is the first time, Padfoot?"

"I hadn't even thought of that," he confesses.

They decide to wait and confront Harry about it after he's finished his OWLs when he'll be less stressed and probably more willing to talk to them.

* * *

The first time Yaxley hits him—after he makes a remark about drinking piss when Yaxley claims his coffee tastes like just that—the Assistant lifts a hand to his stinging cheek and rubs it as he looks at Yaxley balefully. "That was uncalled for."

"I have told you to speak to me with respect."

"It was a joke, Preston."

Yaxley slaps him again. The Assistant hits him back, hard enough to split his lip and knock him back against the kitchen counters.

"Don't. Hit. Me."

Yaxley touches a finger to his lip then looks at the Assistant. "Don't ever strike me again, and don't you dare give me orders. I'm the Master in this relationship."

"I'm well aware of that. It doesn't give you the right to hit me."

Yaxley lashes out once more and the Assistant throws up an arm to block the blow then backs up a step, glaring at him angrily. When Yaxley goes for his wand, the Assistant disarms him with a flick of his finger, snatching his wand out of the air.

Yaxley holds out his hand. "Give me my wand."

"I am not your punching bag."

"Give me the wand!"

The Assistant doesn't. His hand shakes.

" _Give me the fucking wand!_ "

The Assistant's hand jerks then he lifts it and drops the wand into Yaxley's own outstretched palm. Immediately Yaxley jerks it in a diagonal slash and the Assistant staggers, hands going to his chest, eyes going wide as he lets out a weak gasp. He stumbles against the counters, face screwing up in pain as he attempts to breathe despite his ribcage shrinking and crushing against his lungs. Yaxley watches him slide down to his knees, one hand clutching the sideboard while his other scratches at his chest like he can tear through his skin to grab his ribs and pull them back to give him space to breathe.

"Never take my wand from me again. In fact, never use magic against me again, Harry." He crouches, grabbing the Assistant's chin and harshly jerking his head up to look at him. "I own you. I will do as I like to you and you will take it because that is what you're supposed to do."

Yaxley drops his chin, rising and stepping back, and only then flicks his wand and murmurs the counter curse. The Assistant gasps and collapses to the floor completely, coughing weakly and drawing in harsh, ragged breaths to refill his now unrestricted lungs.

"You're mine, Harry. Don't ever forget it."

* * *

"Could I go?"

Sirius, Lupin, and Harry look at James in surprise. It's the Friday before the OWLs begin and they're discussing what'll happen. McGonagall has sent Harry a timetable of the exams and a letter explaining how he would have to come into the school each day to sit them, arriving after breakfast and leaving before dinner, but that he can take lunch with the rest of the students.

They decide it'll be easiest to rent a room in Hogsmeade for two weeks instead of travelling from Coleford every day, but it's unnecessary for all three adults to go. Harry suggests going alone, but they instantly axe that idea.

"You want to go?" Sirius asks and James nods. "You'll be alone most of the day."

"Yeah, I know that, Padfoot. But," he says with a sigh, "I can't keep relying on you guys all the time. Sam's been encouraging me to get out on my own more. This seems like a good opportunity. If you don't mind, Harry?"

"I'm fine with it."

Sirius and Lupin glance at each other, Sirius shrugs, and Lupin says, "We'll book a room with floo access so you can call us or Sam at any moment if you need to."

On Sunday evening, Sirius and Lupin wish Harry luck and then he and James floo into the Three Broomsticks and they drop their bags in the room before going back down for dinner. Harry's got his green, non-magical eye in and he finds it odd, not having worn it since the third task almost a year ago now. He's grown used to being able to look around all over the place and now it's bizarre not to have that, but he doesn't wanted to risk accidentally leaving it in when he goes to an exam and get sent away or made to do the exam one-eyed. He has no inclination to wear it under a glamour either; he doesn't quite trust himself not to cheat if he has the chance, and he wants to prove that he's good enough to do these exams himself.

He spends that night obsessively reading his Charms text, muttering spells and their wand movements. The last thing he needs is for one of the examiners to catch him doing the wrong wand movements but still managing the spell.

He doesn't eat much the next morning, too nervous, then James walks him up to the school and wishes him luck before leaving him with McGonagall, who escorts him up to the castle.

"Are you feeling confident?"

"I was yesterday."

" _I'm_ confident in you," she says with a small smile.

The fifth and seventh years are already congregated in the Entrance Hall when they reach the castle and Harry gets plenty of surprised stares when he enters.

"Harry!"

He hardly gets a glimpse at Hermione before she's grabbing him in a crushing hug.

"Hey, 'mione," he wheezes, and pats her back with one hand while waving to Neville with the other. "Missed you too."

"What are you doing here?"

"Taking my OWLs."

"You're not even a fifth year!"

He shrugs. "I know, but I've been studying hard so I'm giving it a shot and they let me take them here."

"That's great," Neville says with a smile.

"Yes, of course," Hermione agrees. "Oh, and Harry, I'm so sorry we didn't write. Professor McGonagall told us letters out of the school were being monitored and we thought Umbridge might try stopping your letters, especially after Dumbledore had to leave—did you hear about that? She found—"

"I know, Hermione," he cuts her off, smiling. "I've heard, but—"

He doesn't get to say anything more. The Great Hall's doors open and students start being called in.

"We'll talk at lunch," he mutters to her as the seventh years start filing in.

He's the last to get called in, sitting at the back nearest the door. Draco's sitting just four seats to his left and when their eyes meet, Harry smiles at his shocked expression, then McGonagall's tapping the hourglass at the front of the room and telling them to begin.


	55. Chapter 55

Harry feels fairly confident about the Charms paper when he's finished. There isn't anything on it that he's never heard of, which is what he worried about most in having missed a year, but he does wonder if accepting advice from the voice in his head counts as some form of cheating.

"Hey."

A hand slips into his and he squeezes it, turning to Draco with a smile. "Heya."

 _Oh god,_ the voice moans unhappily. _I didn't miss him and your sappy relationship._

He has to bite his tongue to keep from telling it to shut up. He's spent too much time speaking aloud to it lately.

"I've got a bone to pick with you, Evans. Why didn't you tell me you were going to be here?"

"Post into the school is being monitored. I didn't want to send anything in case the Umbitch intercepted it."

"Umbitch?"

"She got me expelled and as such, I don't have to be polite about her."

Draco's smile fades. "How are you doing?"

Harry shrugs. "It could be worse. I got a custom made new wand, so that's one good thing to come from it, and I'm taking my OWLs a year early so there's that too."

"Custom made?"

Harry nods, drawing it from his pocket. "I think I've tried every other wand in Ollivander's store and none of them fit me, so he offered to make one. Cost a bit more but it's worth it. It has basilisk scale core."

Draco's eyebrows jump up to his hairline. "I've never heard of that for a wand core."

"He said he doesn't normally use snake scales but because I'm a Parselmouth he said he'd give it a go."

Draco pouts when Harry says he's sitting with Hermione and Neville for lunch, a pout that turns to a scowl when Harry says he's not allowed to stay in the school for dinner and so won't be able to eat with him until the next day.

He's not entirely welcome at the Gryffindor table though.

"What are you doing at our table, snake?"

"Eating, Weasley. What's it look like?"

"You're a Slytherin; you're not allowed here."

"Was a Slytherin," Harry corrects Ron. "I'm no longer a student and therefore entitled to sit at whichever table I like."

He asks about how the D.A. was found out and snorts pumpkin juice up his nose when Hermione mentions the jinx she put on the list of members and the fact that Marietta Edgecombe still has spots spelling SNEAK across her face.

After lunch they all go into the side room and wait to get called forward in small groups to take the practical part of the exam. Everyone else is done alphabetically, but Harry's stuck on the end. He wishes he was at the start instead, so he wouldn't have to spend ages waiting nervously.

Only when Professor Marchbanks, the tiny little witch who's his examiner, looks surprised when Harry's plate lifts into the air does he realise that he unthinkingly cast the Levitation Charm silently, so focused on the wand movements that he forgot to speak the incantation aloud, and he winces, but Marchbanks asks in the loud voice of someone who's hearing is going, "Can you do other spells silently?"

"Um... yes."

"Impressive. Not many your age can."

"So it's okay if I do them all silently?"

"Can you?"

"Yes."

"Alright then," she says, taking a rat cage from the floor by her feet and letting the animal out onto the table in front of her. "I'd like you to turn this orange..."

He leaves the Great Hall afterwards feeling perfectly confident about the practical. Even finding Snape waiting in the Entrance Hall to escort him to the gates doesn't dampen his mood.

"How was it?" Snape asks him as they walk down the path.

"Good, I think."

Snape nods. "Lily got top marks in her Charms OWL. I don't doubt you've done just as well."

Harry glances at him in surprise, but Snape's gaze is fixed forward and he says nothing more.

 _Told you Daddy cares_.

Harry makes the walk from the gates to Hogsmeade alone then finds James just leaving Honeydukes, a bag hanging from his wrist.

"I was just about to walk up to meet you," he says as they head towards the Three Broomsticks. "How did it go?"

"Pretty good. Got enough chocolate?"

James glances down at the bag with a wan smile and shrugs. "I thought you might want some. You know how Remus swears by it as the cure-all for everything."

"But I don't need curing of anything."

"Nerves," James answers promptly. "Either that or you can eat it in celebration of getting through your first exam without disaster."

He spends the evening nervously nibbling at the chocolate while he studies for the Transfiguration exam the next day.

He's a little less confident about his theory portion of the Transfiguration exam, feeling sure he's forgotten something, but he lets the worry slip away as he eats lunch, sitting with Draco beside him and Cid and Tyler opposite. Cid's dating Toni Kaidkin, one of the Slytherin girls in their year, and has been for a couple of weeks.

"And we found out Jia's transsexual," Tyler tells him.

Harry looks up in surprise at that, glancing down the table to where Jia's sat with Toni. "She is?"

"Yup. Turns out she underwent a Gender Reassignment Potion Regiment when she was eight. She's still taking hormone treatments for it."

"There's a regiment for it?"

"Changing someone's gender isn't easy," Draco remarks.

"But I thought Genderbend Potions work instantly. I could have sworn I read that somewhere."

"It does but Genderbend Potions are only temporary; it wears off after a couple of hours so it's nothing major, but complete gender reassignment is more complicated."

"Oh. How do you know all this?" he asks suspiciously. "Are you transsexual?"

"My mother was a healer, Evans. How many times am I going to have to remind you of that?"

"I didn't forget, it's just weird that you pick up all this stuff when she's not a healer anymore."

Draco shrugs. "I'm thinking of becoming one if I do well enough in my exams."

* * *

He does as well with the Transfiguration practical as he did with Charms, then on Wednesday they have Herbology, which he does alright in until he has a seizure halfway through the practical. He's not surprised; even just the stress of studying increased them so he expected to have one during the exams themselves. Defence Against the Dark Arts is on Thursday and he's confident he passes it perfectly, and he speeds through the Ancient Runes exam on Friday morning, completing it easily.

* * *

James spends his days wandering the village, seeing what's changed since his teenage years, visiting the Shrieking Shack and feeling reminiscent when he does, then shutting himself in the room in the Three Broomsticks when all the people get too much for him.

* * *

"ASSISTANT!"

He doesn't look up from the toy train he's setting up at the top of an elaborate set of wooden rails that twist, turn, and loop around the kitchen of the Riddle House, interwoven with a second set of tracks made of smooth plastic, at the start of which there's a miniature skateboard with a toy soldier stuck to it. He's just fine tuning the Sticking Spell that'll keep the train connected to the tracks while allowing it to remain moving when Lucius appears in the doorway, a towel wrapped around his waist, face furious, and droplets of water still clinging to his skin—which is fluorescent yellow.

Lucius and Bellatrix are the only Azkaban escapees to remain in the Riddle House with Voldemort, the others having moved on to other places to hide and returning only when called. Initially, Rodolphus Lestrange remained as well, but whatever love there was between him and Bellatrix was killed in Azkaban just as surely as Bellatrix's sanity, and after a loud and violent argument he went off to join his brother. Bellatrix seems much happier.

" _What the hell is wrong with you?_ " Lucius yells when he locates the Assistant through the maze of wood and plastic. "Spiders in my bed, shrinking my underwear, now _this_? Can't you pull these ridiculous pranks on Yaxley?"

"He can and will stop me; you and Bellatrix can't. As for what's wrong with me..." He gives the train and the skateboard a push and watches them speed down their respective tracks. "I could tell you that the power of owning a Slave has gone to my Master's head, but he fears me because he knows I'm infinitely more powerful than him and as such has taken to beating me, while forbidding me to retaliate either physically or magically, in a subconscious effort to convince himself that he is the more powerful of us, and that subsequently I've taken to spending my days bothering you and Bellatrix in a vain attempt to trick myself into believing I have a modicum of control over my own life before I have to return to him each night, but none of that's going to change the fact that you're currently bright yellow," he finishes just as the soldier on the skateboard reaches the end of his track and goes flying off the end, whizzing past Lucius' ear and clattering to the floor in the hallway past him. The train follows suit just a second later. "Still perfectly attractive though."

Lucius sighs irritably. "In short, you're being an insufferable child because Yaxley smacked you a few times?"

The Assistant stares at him. He lifts his hand and Lucius tenses, half expecting to be attacked, but the Assistant merely summons the train and skateboard back to him and sets them up at the start of the tracks again.

"Yes, Lucius, I'm being an insufferable child because he 'smacked me a few times'."

"If I promise to speak to him will you cease your infernal pranks and return my skin to normal?"

"It would certainly solve your problem," he replies, unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice.

"You might be a little more polite to someone offering to aid you, Assistant."

The Assistant pushes the train and skateboard off and looks over at him incredulously. "You're supposed to be intelligent, Lucius. Do you really think telling my Master I've been irritating you is going to be in anyway good for me?"

"What do you want from me then?"

"I don't want anything from you. You asked what was wrong with me; I told you. Whether you now approach my Master and express your annoyances with me, or elect to leave it and hope I decide Bellatrix is a better target for my frustrations, is entirely up to you."

"You're going to annoy the Dark Lord himself if you carry on like this," Lucius points out as the train and skateboard go flying past him again. "I doubt you'd have such a blasé attitude if he'd been the one to use the shower this morning."

"He relies on Cleansing Spells; always has," the Assistant replies, summoning the train and skateboard. "And I think he's getting used to me actually."

"I doubt—are you aiming for some particular result?" Lucius interrupts himself as the Assistant sets up the train and skateboard.

The Assistant frowns at him. "No."

"Then why are you doing it again?"

The Assistant shrugs. "I'm bored."

"And this... you know what? Nevermind. I don't care. Tell me how to get my skin back to normal."

"It'll wear off in a few hours."

Lucius snarls, turns, and stomps off.

"If you don't want pink hair then I'd avoid using the conditioner!" the Assistant calls after him, sending his train and skateboard racing down their tracks again.

* * *

Harry spends most of the weekend studying for the Potions exam on Monday, but he has another seizure on Sunday and James convinces him to take a walk after he's recovered, and he has to admit the fresh air and ice cream that they get refreshes his mind and makes it easier to concentrate when he goes back to his books.

He thinks he does well in the Potions theory on Monday morning, but although he makes his potion without disaster he's pretty sure it wouldn't have stood up to Snape's strict standards. He gets Tuesday free—the Care of Magical Creatures exam is then—and he spends it studying for his Arithmancy exam that'll be the following afternoon.

The written Astronomy paper is Wednesday morning and he can't remember if Ganymede is one of Jupiter's moon or Saturn's. He's halfway through Arithmancy when he decides that Ganymede was definitely Jupiter's... and he'd named it as Saturn's. He shakes his head, telling himself to focus on his _current_ exam.

The Astronomy practical is that night, but halfway through everyone's distracted by the sudden appearance of Umbridge and a handful of people Harry thinks are Ministry personnel stalking out the doors of the castle just below them, marching across the grounds to Hagrid's hut and attempting to arrest him. Hagrid refuses to be taken and when they try stunning him the spells bounce of his skin harmlessly. McGonagall comes running out of the doors, shouting at them to stop, only for four of the Aurors to throw stunners at her.

"NO!"

A few girls scream, so Harry's shout doesn't matter, but he barely notices. He flings out a hand, thinking only that he has to stop it, and the four stunners veer off course, whizzing past McGonagall close enough to make her robes flutter but not touching her. They hit the walls of the castle harmlessly, but Harry's already flicking his wrist, and the Aurors and Umbridge are tossed off their feet. There's a brief moment when nobody moves—not the students, the examiner, nor McGonagall and Hagrid on the grounds—and then Hagrid bends and scoops up his dog, Fang, and charges towards the gate, long gone by the time the Aurors have picked themselves up again.

They return to their exams, but Harry doesn't think anyone is really very focused on it. Afterwards, McGonagall is in the Entrance Hall to escort Harry to the front gate and he rushes down the last staircase towards her.

"Professor, are you alright? We saw everything from the Astronomy tower."

"I'm fine, thank you, Mr Evans," she says stiffly, glancing towards where Umbridge is furiously talking in hushed whispers with one of the Aurors. "Come along."

She says nothing more until they're almost at the front gate and her voice is gentler now. "Thank you, Harry." When he glances at her, she smiles softly. "I may not be the Charms professor but I know Stunning Spells don't abruptly change targets."

"I couldn't let them hit you. I'm pretty sure four stunners all at once is bad for you."

"Yes, it would be. I'm very grateful for you interference, even if you should have been focusing on your exam."

"No one else was," he says with a small shrug, "and I was probably going to fail anyway. I've never been much good at Astronomy."

* * *

He has to ask for extra parchment twice in the History of Magic exam and his handwriting starts to deteriorate towards the end as he writes faster, trying to include as much as he can before his time's up. He's pretty sure he's written more than anyone else in the hall and he thinks that if he doesn't get an 'O' on this exam then he'll seek out Voldemort and join him immediately, because if he can't ace his favourite and best subject then the world's gone mad and it doesn't matter if he sides with the Dark Lord.

He hates having to say bye to his friends again after the exam. It's worse this time because he doesn't have a Draught of Peace to make things easier. Even getting a goodbye kiss from Draco doesn't make him feel any better—in fact, it makes him feel worse because it reminds him just how much he's missed it all, and he's grateful to McGonagall for not saying anything as she takes him down to the gate. He'd feel even worse if he was rude to her because of his bad mood.

"You want to get an ice cream before we leave?" James suggests as they head towards Hogsmeade, having met him at the gate. Harry shakes his head, kicking a stone along the ground.

"I just want to go home."

They return to the Three Broomsticks to get their bags, but the door's just swung shut behind them when a voice from the corner says, "Precious."

A shudder runs through James. Harry spins, recognising the voice, and sees Lucius Malfoy appear from nowhere, but not with the crack of Apparition. Someone comes up behind Harry and before he can stop them they've reached around and snapped a shackle around his wrist. He tries to throw them off with magic but the shackle must be etched with magic suppression runes because he hears only a pained grunt and the hands holding him don't let go. He struggles when they try to lock the second shackle around his other wrist and his medical bracelet is ripped off in the process, but he's not strong enough to get away and the metal snaps around his wrist.

"Will you stop bloody fighting?" says a familiar voice. "My body's sore enough as it is."

"HEL-"

A finger touches his lips and he suddenly finds them stuck together, silencing him mid-shout, then the Assistant's arms firmly wrap around him.

"Get on with it, Lucius, we haven't got all day."

Lucius steps forwards and James staggers back, fumbling for his wand.

"Precious, stop."

James stops backing away but he shakes slightly, his whole body trembling like he's trying to move but can't, and he whimpers.

"Leave your wand in your pocket and give me your hand. Say nothing until I permit you to speak. Is that clear?"

James gives another whimper and Harry squirms in the Assistant's grip, trying to call to him through his closed mouth.

"Answer me, _precious_ ," Lucius murmurs, and James gasps weakly.

"Yes, Master."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pre-emptive warning that things are going to start getting darker from here on out.


	56. Chapter 56

"Where's he taken James?"

It's the first thing out of Harry's mouth when he's finally freed to speak. The Assistant and Lucius have Apparated him and James to a large house and then Lucius promptly leads James up a set of stairs and vanishes from sight while the Assistant drags Harry, struggling furiously, into a dark sitting room. Voldemort stands to one side, watching them, and the Assistant shoves Harry to his knees and keeps a firm hand on his shoulder to push him down when Harry tries to get to his feet again.

"Where's he gone? What did Lucius do to him?"

"You needn't worry about your step-father," Voldemort says. "Lucius will take good care of him, I'm sure."

"Is that meant to be some sarcastic way of saying he's going to torture him?" Harry replies angrily, trying to pretend he's not afraid.

"Unlikely," Voldemort says dismissively. "I believe Lucius grew quite attached to the man. Let's not concern ourselves with them, however. You, Harry, have been incredibly rude to me. Why have you ignored my every attempt to contact you? I didn't even receive a refusal from you."

"Because you're a piece of shit."

Voldemort's eyes flash dangerously.

* * *

"Kneel."

James drops to his knees. Lucius sits in an armchair in the corner of the room he's claimed as his own and gently takes James' chin in one hand, tilting his head up slightly to inspect his face. James just looks at him, eyes filled with hate and relief and fear and need.

"You seem to be in good health, at least, and I think there's a little more colour in your face. It was always a pity I could never take you out. I hope you've taken advantage of being able to get outside this past year."

James remains silent. Lucius cups his hand around his jaw and James jerks his head away.

"What did I say, precious? Stop fighting me."

James ducks his head, closing his eyes and clenching his jaw. Lucius smiles. "That's better. Let me see my mark."

He pulls down the collar of James' robes and his smile fades as he sees the jagged scars covering the words carved into the skin beneath James' collarbone.

"Who did this to you?" he demands. "Answer me!"

"I did it."

* * *

"I am offering you something incredible, Harry, a chance to fully utilise the power you hold."

"You mean you want to turn me into a lying, torturing, murdering arsehole like _him_ ," Harry replies, jerking his head towards the Assistant.

"Stand up, Harry," Voldemort says, moving to the tall-backed armchair and settling in it. "Sit with me. Only my servants should kneel before me. Assistant, leave us."

The Assistant hesitates but bows his heads and leaves as Harry gets to his feet. Harry makes no move towards the sofa, instead glancing towards the door.

"There is no use trying to run," Voldemort says and gestures to the sofa. "Sit down and let us talk. You have a very misguided notion of what I do; understandable, given the people you associate with, but I wish to re-educate you on the matter."

"There's nothing to re-educate me on," Harry replies, staying in place. "You're a murdering scumbag. Everyone knows that."

"I am trying to make our world a better place, Harry. I want to remove the people who are detrimental to our society, who threaten our safety, who weaken the wizarding population."

"People like my mother?"

"I gave your mother the choice to stand aside. She chose to die for you."

Harry wishes he could call Voldemort a liar, but he knows it's true. He hears it every time a Dementor gets near him, his mother pleading for his life as Voldemort orders her to move aside.

"And then you tried to kill me, and you tried again when I stopped you getting the Philosopher's Stone, and you would have last summer as well if the Assistant hadn't turned up."

"If you expect an apology from me, Harry, you will receive none. I took the steps I deemed necessary to ensure I could continue with my work, but I know now that you are not a threat to me."

_Don't correct him!_

"I'm not going to. I'm not a com-"

He breaks off.

_Not a complete idiot?_ the voice finishes dryly. _So you didn't just speak aloud to me right in front of him? Because that wouldn't be idiotic at all._

"Not going to what?" Voldemort asks coldly.

"Expect an apology from you," Harry says. "Monsters never apologise from their actions."

"You are pushing the limits of my patience, Harry. I am giving you a chance to become something great. Beside me, you could be more than you will ever be if you continue to stand alongside Albus Dumbledore."

"Beside you? Don't you mean at your feet? You'd never let someone stand beside you as an equal."

"I would allow you to stand as my right hand man."

"Really? And how will the rest of the Death Eaters react to that—the child you tried to kill joining their ranks and instantly becoming your favourite? Because somehow I don't think they'd like that."

"Their opinions are irrelevant. I am their leader; they will respect my decisions."

"Or you'll torture them, right? That's what you do to people who step out of line, isn't it?"

"A leader has to remind his people of their place or they will not respect him."

* * *

Lucius runs his thumb over the raised, pink scar tissue. "Those people you call friends are poisonous. If the Dark Lord didn't have such need of you, I would not let you return. I dread the damage that's been done to your mind by the psychiatrists at Saint Mungo's, though I'm sure they mean well."

He sighs and tugs James' robe back into place just as there's a knock at the door. He calls for entry and Bellatrix comes in, eyes fixing on James immediately.

"So you've got your little pet back."

"For a short while," Lucius says, combing his fingers through James' hair. Bellatrix comes over, moving around to look down at James critically, who looks up at her with pure loathing. When she reaches out to touch him, Lucius grabs her wrist.

"Keep your hands to yourself, Bellatrix."

She draws her hand back, clicking her tongue in annoyance. "There's no need to be so possessive, dear brother."

"I'm no longer your brother. It's about the only good thing to come of my divorce."

"A disgraceful action on my sister's part," Bellatrix says, folding her arms over her chest and moving away from the two men. "No Black woman has ever been involved in a divorce. I'm ashamed to be related to the first to do so."

"No, you merely murder 'unworthy' husbands, don't you? I'm surprised yours left this house in one piece."

"And to take the Black name again after it's been so defiled by my cousin," Bellatrix continues as though Lucius hasn't spoken. "It is a disgrace."

"Narcissa had every right to take her maiden name. I betrayed her trust and she wants nothing more to do with me. And she has done far more disgraceful things than participate in a divorce and retake a sullied name, Bellatrix, as you well know."

"I happen to agree with what my sister used to do, Lucius. As a man you have no right to judge what my sister did for witches."

"For witches or for you? I know you refuse to bear children, Bellatrix, but I wonder if you've ever come close and been to Narcissa for help."

"If I have, it's hardly your place to comment. You shouldn't be so dismissive of her actions, Lucius; she's killed more Mudbloods' children than you have."

"And more pureblooded ones, too."

"Yet you still went to great lengths to keep her from prison."

"I love Narcissa; I had no desire to see her imprisoned. Besides that, she was pregnant when her... indiscretion was discovered. We had difficulty enough conceiving Draco; the Dementors would undoubtedly have caused a miscarriage and I would never allow the Malfoy line to end with me."

Bellatrix smirks, turning to look at Lucius. "Maybe not with you, but if Nott's kid is right it sounds like the Malfoy family will die with Draco. He seems to think your son is smitten with the Evans boy."

"He is a teenager," Lucius says dismissively, glancing down at James, who looks up in surprise at Bellatrix's words. "When he's older, he will marry and provide an heir. You didn't know my son was in a relationship with Harry Evans," he says to James, who shakes his head once. "You should be pleased, precious. If he fears your reaction to his having a relationship with my child, he likely values your opinion and thus you. Take it as a compliment."

Bellatrix looks at him disdainfully. "You treat him too kindly, Lucius. Aren't you meant to beat him into submission?"

"That's hardly necessary. He is perfectly loyal to me and he knows what awaits him if he turns on me, don't you, James?"

"Yes, Master," he replies in a small voice.

"You see? I long ago ensured his loyalty to me; now I treat him well and he responds far more favourably."

Bellatrix snorts disbelievingly, but there's a hint of jealousy in her eyes and Lucius notices it.

"I'm sure if you asked nicely, the Dark Lord would allow you a slave of your own," he remarks. "He might even give you the Assistant."

"I have no interest in Yaxley's leftovers and I certainly wouldn't want that disrespectful piece of trash."

"I'm hurt, Bella," says the Assistant, appearing in the doorway with a grin on his face. "I thought we were developing a bond. Or did I misread that Cruciatus last week? I'd have sworn it was a sign of strong affection."

"It was a just punishment for what you did to my robes."

"But you looked so lovely in lime green. Nice to see you again, James. You look better than the last time I saw you."

James looks from him to Lucius, who merely continues to run his fingers through James' hair as he addresses the Assistant. "Aren't you meant to return to Preston's place for when he finishes work, which is shortly, isn't it?"

"Unless the Dark Lord has need of me."

"If the Dark Lord needs you, why are you up here?"

"He wants to speak to Harry alone; it doesn't mean he's done with me," the Assistant says, but Lucius notices the slight tremor in his hand as he says it.

* * *

"I know how to break your deal."

Harry swallows and shifts slightly, the shackles on his wrists clinking as he moves. "You're lying," he says without conviction. "You're only saying that to get me to join you."

"I don't make promises I can't keep, Harry. I know of a way to avoid being dragged to hell when your time is up, which is in two years, is it not?"

"How do you even know that? I've never told anyone."

"You are not the only person to sell their soul for power."

"The Assistant," Harry guesses.

"He should have died at eighteen, as you will, and yet he stands alive today. Join me and I will permit him to tell you how."

_Sacrificing your morals is a small price to pay for not dying young,_ the voice remarks. _Surely whatever he asks of you is worth it to live a full life._

Harry licks at his dry lips. It'd be a lie to say he doesn't agree with the voice at least a little, but...

"I don't trust him. He's a liar. He's lied to you before. He's probably lying about this as well."

"How would you know if the Assistant lied to me?"

"I know he told you I smashed the prophecy when I didn't."

Voldemort stands. When he speaks, his voice is dangerously cold. "What did you do with it?"

"I Apparated it back to Hogwarts, but the Assistant broke in and stole it."

"And did what with it?"

"I don't know. Maybe he smashed it himself, but it wasn't me. He lied to you."

* * *

When Nagini slithers into Lucius' room, Lucius tenses, hands tightening in James' hair. James stiffens, leaning towards Lucius and away from the snake, fear evident on his face. Bellatrix shifts, turning slightly so she's presenting only her side to the snake. The Assistant stands perfectly still as Nagini slithers up to him, only his hands still trembling slightly as he eyes her warily.

" _Master wants you._ "

The Assistant's hands go still. " _I'm on my way_."

Voldemort gets straight to the point when he enters the room. "Tell me what happened to the prophecy I sent you to retrieve in October."

The Assistant frowns, glances at Harry, then back to Voldemort. "It was smashed when I attempted to take it from him."

"Smashed by whom?"

"By Harry."

"You're a liar," Harry says. "I never smashed it."

"I don't deny that I'm a liar, but I cannot lie to you, my lord. You heard my Master order me not to lie to you and you questioned me on this matter then."

"Without your Trigger, you can resist his orders."

"And it would show," the Assistant says, holding up his perfectly steady hands. "Outright fighting such a direct order would have me in considerable agony, my lord, so I say again: Harry smashed the prophecy."

"You're lying!"

"No," Voldemort says. "He is not; you are. Assistant, you may go, but stay within the house."

"Yes, my lord."

"You're a liar!" Harry cries, shoving the Assistant as he passes him on the way to the door. "Tell him the truth! I didn't... I didn't smash it," he says, his tone confused as he watches the Assistant stagger from the push, dropping to one knee and clutching at his side, face screwed up in pain.

"I did not know you could be so easily overpowered, Assistant," Voldemort says disdainfully.

"Caught me off guard," the Assistant replies between gritted teeth, getting back to his feet with a wince. "Hit another injury."

"Then heal it," Voldemort sneers. "I have no use for someone who can be taken down by a magicless child."

The Assistant hesitates, then says, "My Master forbade me heal any injuries inflicted by him."

Voldemort looks at him for a long moment before saying dismissively, "Go. I will talk with you later."

Outside the room, the Assistant leans back against the closed door and slides to the floor with a groan. He unbuttons his robes and pulls them open. His torso is a mess of multicoloured bruises, newer ones overlaying old ones, and a long deep wound cuts around his left side and intersect with the burns scars from when Voldemort had him on the rack, mostly scabbed over except for the end on his front, which has split open to allow blood to trickle down his stomach. He conjures a wound dressing and presses it to the injury, wincing as he does and leaning his head back against the door, letting out a weary sigh and closing his eyes.

He doesn't move when he hears the crack of Apparition from just around the corner, but he lets out an unhappy sigh because he knows instantly who it is. He listens as footsteps walk up the hall and round the corner, pausing briefly before stalking up to him, and then a boot slams into his side and he gasps painfully, eyes flying open.

"You're supposed to be in the apartment for when I finish work."

"Unless the Dark Lord needs me."

"And he needs you to sit on your arse outside his door, does he?" Yaxley asks snidely.

"I wouldn't be here if he didn't need me, would I?" the Assistant replies, looking up at him angrily. "He told me to stay in the house otherwise I'd be in the apartment just like you ordered."

* * *

"What Master was he talking about?"

"That is none of your concern," Voldemort answers coldly. "You should worry about yourself."

Harry edges away from him. "Is this where you torture me until I say yes?" he asks, mouth dry and voice shaking slightly.

_I think you're giving him ideas_ , the voice mutters as Voldemort smiles unpleasantly.

"Would you say yes before I broke your mind? Given your disease, I expect you would break much quicker than anyone else. And of course, you're already insane... or is your father correct and that was nothing more than a ploy to try and trick me into thinking you weren't worth killing?"

"You probably don't want someone insane working for you."

"I don't consider it an issue."

"That seems unnecessarily risky. Insane people are probably quite unreliable."

"You are testing me, Harry. Will you follow in your father's footsteps and join me, Harry?"

_Oh he really shouldn't have said that_.

Harry lifts his chin. "I'd rather follow in my mother's than ever follow in _his_."

"That," Voldemort says coldly, drawing his wand, "can be arranged."

Harry stares at him as he lifts the wand, terrified and with a vague notion in mind to run, but unwilling to die from a curse to his back. He just hopes it won't hurt too much.

Then there's a scream from outside the room that chokes off almost immediately. When Voldemort opens the door, he finds the Assistant on the floor right in front of it, Yaxley crouched over him with his hand around the Assistant's throat and muttering a spell as he jabs his wand into the wound on the Assistant's side, which has completely split open now and spills blood all over his front, mingling with the lemon juice that comes from Yaxley's wand.

"I hope you have a good reason for assaulting one of your fellow Death Eaters, Preston," Voldemort says in a dangerous tone. Yaxley twists his wand and the Assistant gives a choked cry of pain, then Yaxley draws his hands away and rises to face Voldemort. The Assistant curls in on himself, gingerly pressing a shaking hand to his injury then whimpering pitifully.

"He's disrespectful, arrogant, and forgets his place. I was simply reminding him—"

"You forget yours, Preston," Voldemort interrupts. "I did not give you power over him so that you might beat him into something that can be overwhelmed by a child as he was earlier. He may be yours to control, but you will control him at _my_ will. I am lord and master to you both."

"Of course, my lord, I realise that, but—"

"But nothing. Take him upstairs and heal him—Bellatrix can assist you—then wait for me to call you."

Yaxley bows his head. "Yes, my lord."

Voldemort turns away, returning his attention to the room just in time to see a pair of feet disappearing out one of the windows.

* * *

With his hands shackled Harry finds it awkward to wiggle out the small window and there's a small drop outside, but he gets his hands in front of him and avoids landing on his head, instead falling arse over head into a forward roll. He struggles to his feet and runs, stumbling slightly but managing not to fall.

A jet of red light whizzes past his head and he yelps, throwing himself to one side and hitting the ground. He looks back to see Voldemort standing at the window, furious, and spares a second to listen to the voice wonder why it was a bolt of red instead of green, then he's scrambling to his feet again and stumbling in the direction of the waist-high, crumbling brick wall surrounding the property.

At barely six o'clock in mid-June, it's still perfectly light outside and that feels a little weird, Harry thinks. The house he was in is dark and after nearly being killed he feels like it should be dark outside too, but he stumbles along under an unobstructed sun, a gentle breeze brushing past him, bringing with it the mouth-watering smell of a barbecue. It's not the kind of day he wants to die on.

He pauses at the wall to look back at the house. Voldemort's gone from the window but two figures are just leaving through the front door—Bellatrix Lestrange, who he recognises from the papers, and a tall man who he's never seen before. They both have wands in hand and move faster than he does, unhampered by chains, and he looks away, scrambling over the wall just as another bolt of red shoots past him. The property sits atop a steep hill and at the bottom is a village, and he hopes that if he can reach it then he'll be safe.

He's taken barely three steps before he trips, hits the ground and rolls, unable to stop himself as he tumbles down the hill. It hurts, especially when he hits rocks set into the grassy slope, but he thinks it's probably faster than his stumbling run so he doesn't try to stop.

But then he jerks to a halt like a hook has latched into his gut. For a second he doesn't move, then he starts getting dragged up the hill and he wonders if this is what it's like for a fish caught on a rod. He digs his hands into the ground, trying to get some purchase to stop himself but only pulls up clumps of grass and dirt and small rocks.

"HELP!" he screams, hoping someone from the village might hear him. "SOMEONE! HELP ME! SOME-"

His voice goes silent. He keeps shouting but no sound comes out and he realises they've hit him with a Silencing Charm. He keeps screaming anyway, because there's nothing else he can do and he's terrified and doesn't want to get dragged back to that house.


	57. Chapter 57

There are a lot of questions James thinks he should ask—where are they, why are they here, what does Lucius plan to do with him, what's happened to Harry and is he alright, what does Voldemort plan to do with Harry, are either of them going to leave here alive and go home—but Lucius tells him not to speak unless spoken to and so he can say nothing. He remembers, now, the ritual that forced his soul to Bond to Lucius' and knows that the conflicted feelings he's had for the past months of hating and wanting Lucius at the same time come from that Bond. He can fight all he wants and knows that logically he should hate Lucius for what he did to him, but the Bond will never let him truly hate the man. Every time Lucius speaks to him something under his skin sparks and he has to obey— _wants_ to obey. It's easier, anyway. With Lucius' thigh under his cheek and Lucius' hand in his hair, he feels like he's where he's supposed to be. So he kneels beside his Master, closes his eyes, and trusts that as long as he's there everything will be fine.

* * *

The Assistant knows where he is the moment he wakes up. The smell of Yaxley's bed and the feel of his sheets are all too familiar. But for the first time in weeks not a single part of him hurts. There's no throbbing from fresh bruises, no ache in joints that've been dislocated and roughly shoved back into place, no itch from half-healed wounds. There's just the pleasant numbness of high strength pain potions.

"I know you're awake."

He chokes on a snide, "Bully for you," because even he can't trick the Bond into thinking that's anywhere close to respectful, and says nothing, just opens his eyes and stares up at the ceiling. Yaxley sits beside him, one foot tucked under himself, the other leg hanging over the edge of the bed.

"The Dark Lord has ordered me to cease beating you, as was no doubt you intention when you went running to him like a whiny brat."

"Don't you think that if I was to go running to the Dark Lord to whine about you, I would have done it weeks ago when you first started instead of waiting until you reached the stage of pouring lemon juice in open wounds?"

"You've only yourself to blame. If you hadn't been rude, I wouldn't have had to do it."

"Of course it's my fault. I mean, heaven forbid I express a desire that you take—" the Bond chokes his growing anger, apparently deeming it disrespectful where sarcasm alone isn't, and he continues bitterly, "take some care when you fuck me."

"I could always not fuck you at all."

"Chance would be a fine thing."

"Might I remind you that you came onto me first?"

"Might I remind you that when you consented to finally doing it you ordered me silent, cuffed me to the bed, and proceeded to bugger me several times without asking if I wanted a single break in five hours? Might I remind you that since then you've never actually asked me if I wanted to do it again, just ordered me into the bed and had your way? Might I remind you—"

"Shut up," Yaxley interrupts, and the Assistant snaps his mouth shut, then grinds his teeth angrily. "You wanted me to fuck you and you enjoyed it enough to come every time, so don't turn it on me and pretend you're some kind of victim." He stands, moving over to his wardrobe and taking out a black robe to pull over his work suit. "I have to return to the Dark Lord. If you're still here when I get back, I'll assume you have no further objections to me fucking you. Otherwise, you can show yourself out."

For half an hour after Yaxley's gone, the Assistant doesn't move. It's not that he objects to the sex—he rarely objects to sex—and he doesn't even mind rough sex or getting tied up and dominated, but he objects to Yaxley assuming he can take it whenever he pleases and the excessively rough nature of the entire act.

But, he thinks with a sigh as he reluctantly drags himself out from under the warm covers, it won't stop him coming back. He knows from experience that no matter how bad the sex with Yaxley gets, he still won't really be satisfied by anyone else now, not unless he transfers the Bond to someone new. The intimacy of sex, no matter how terrible, only serves to cement his attachment to his Master. He'd known it would when he first came onto him, but he hadn't expected Yaxley to turn out to be such a bastard.

He showers slowly, taking a while to inspect himself. Every single bruise is gone from his skin and his injuries healed, but he's been left with scars all around his wrists, and a number of lacerations across his back from when Yaxley used a Whipping Hex on him a few days ago. He's had a lot worse though, so he just switches off the water and steps out, wrapping a towel around his waist and running his hands through his hair to dry it as he wanders into the living room—and gets shoved against the wall with an arm across his throat and a wand thrust in his face.

"You're going to save my godson," Sirius snarls. The Assistant quirks a smile, flicking his gaze briefly to where Lupin stands with his own wand in hand, then looks back at Sirius.

"Really?"

"Yes, or I'm going to teach you what it means to mess with a Black."

"Aww, come on, Sirius, we both know you won't—" He breaks off with a pained shout as Sirius hits him with a Stinging Hex, the close proximity scorching his cheek bright red.

"Don't tell me what I won't do," Sirius warns. "You're going to save my godson and James. I know they're somewhere under Fidelius, but you can save them."

The Assistant glances down. Sirius' hand jerks down and the wand goes flying from his fingers to clatter to the floor. Sirius doesn't let it deter him, just clenches his fist and slams it into the Assistant's face.

"Ow," the Assistant says, and Sirius makes to hit him again only for his fist stops inches from the Assistant's face, unmoving even when he tries to pull it back.

"I've been beat up enough these past few weeks so I don't need more from you, no matter how justified," the Assistant tells him, all the humour gone from his tone now. "You're right, I know where they are, but I can't save them."

"What have you done to me?" Sirius asks, panic in his voice.

"Frozen you from the neck down," he replies. He starts to sidle out from in front of Sirius only to notice Lupin lift his wand and decides to stay where he is instead.

"You've helped Harry before," Lupin says. "Why not now?"

"Circumstances changed. I can't help Harry or James, I'm sorry."

"Bollocks you are," Sirius snaps. "If you were, you'd help."

"I _can't_. There's circumstances you don't know about, Sirius. I'll do what little I can for them and I will not let Harry die, because he's one of three people I would betray the Dark Lord for, but—"

"Then do it," Sirius interrupts. "Betray him now."

"It's not that simple. If Harry's life is threatened, I will; until then, I can't get them out and I can't stop what's going to happen to Harry."

"What are you talking about?" Lupin asks urgently, stepping forwards. "You just said _if_ Harry's life is threatened. Do you mean to say it's not right now?"

"For the minute, no. The Dark Lord wants him on his side and he won't kill him until he's certain Harry won't turn, but Harry hasn't responded to his previous enticements; what do you think that means?"

Lupin closes his eyes, expression pained, while Sirius' go wide and his head jerks in an effort to move.

"I really am sorry, and I'd help Harry if I could, but I can't, and you two need to leave before Yaxley returns."

He slips out from in front of Sirius, keeping an eye on Lupin as he does, and frees Sirius, who immediately crouches to snatch up his wand and point it at the Assistant again.

"Don't bother, Sirius. We both know that you can't best me and it'd be humiliating for you to get your arse kicked by a guy wearing only a towel."

"Oh yeah?" Sirius challenges, but Lupin grabs his other arm.

"He's right, Sirius. Harry's the only one that could match him in power. Let's go, he's not going to help us."

Sirius reluctantly lets himself be dragged to the door, but when they reach it he turns back and throws a Blasting Hex at the Assistant, knocking him off his feet and making his towel slip and fall. The Assistant groans, pushing himself up on his elbows to glower at Sirius, who glances down his body then returns his gaze to the Assistant's face.

"Mine's bigger," he says with a smirk.

Lupin's expression turns incredulous, but he follows Sirius out without a word. The Assistant watches them go then falls back and laughs.

* * *

"Precious."

James stirs from the light doze he fell into, lifting his head to look up at Lucius. Voldemort stands opposite them, red eyes fixed unblinking on James, who wishes he wasn't there. Voldemort makes him immensely uncomfortable as he struggles to accept that this is his Master's Lord, which makes him an ally, yet at the same time he's the man who came to kill James and murdered Lily—no, murdered the Mudblood whore.

"Precious," Lucius murmurs again, and James lets Voldemort and Lily and death slip from his mind, focusing all his attention on his Master because it's the easiest thing to do. "I want you to tell me everything you know about the Order of the Phoenix."

* * *

Harry huddles on the floor of the room he's been locked in, clutching a length of wood. The bedroom is small, with only a single bed and a chair for furniture, and has a small attached bathroom with just a toilet and sink. He's shoved in after his escape attempt and then left, after being told the door only opens with a wand. It hasn't stopped him trying to open it anyway. He tries the window as well, but it's charmed shut and the glass is unbreakable, which he discovers when he breaks the chair trying to smash it. He searches rather desperately for hidden exits, but finds nothing and is eventually forced to admit the door is the only way out. Not yet willing to give up, he takes the largest bit of wood from the broken chair and waits behind the door, intending to smash it over the head of the next person to enter. Neither he nor the voice think about the fact that he probably won't get very far after that; he refuses to give into hopelessness yet.

He's not sure how long passes before the door finally opens, but it's been long enough for his muscles to go stiff, his hands cold, and his stomach to start growling unhappily, and he desperately wants some water. He's fallen into a half-doze, leant against the wall, but he jerks awake when the door opens, scrambling to his feet and tightening his grip on the piece of wood then slamming it against the crown of the black-haired man who enters. Harry doesn't hesitate to slip past and through the door as the man grunts and staggers, dropping a tray with some food and a glass of water on it in the process, but Bellatrix is stood outside and Harry barely crosses the threshold of the room before he's shoved back inside. He trips and falls into a puddle of soup, squishing a bread roll under his elbow, but hurries up again, yelling wordlessly as he lunges at Bellatrix, headbutting her and snatching the wand from her fingers at the same moment the man grabs him around the waist and hauls him back. His vision wavers slightly from the headbutting, but he shifts his grip on the wand, flicks it sharply upwards and to the right then quickly down again and pronounces firmly, " _Duro!_ "

It half works, which he thinks is impressive when it's the first time he's done it without his Wish Magic to help. One of Bellatrix's legs, half her head, one shoulder, and some of her torso turns to stone, enough to stop her in her tracks. The man swears, startled, and throws Harry to the floor then stomps on his arm, hard enough to make the bones snap. Harry cries out, the wand slipping from his fingers, and the man bends and scoops it up, drawing his own as he does and stepping back, eying Harry warily.

"You shouldn't be able to do magic with those chains on."

Harry doesn't answer, glaring at him and sitting up, cradling his broken arm to his chest.

"Unbo bis, Bobohov!" Bellatrix manages to half-shout through the part of her mouth not turned to stone. The man tries casting _Finite Incantatem_ on her, but it does nothing.

"What's the counter curse?" the man demands of Harry.

"Don't know," Harry informs him snidely, and gets kicked. "I don't! I never learnt it and I wouldn't tell you if I did. I hope she's stuck like that forever!"

The man kicks him again then stalks out, slamming the door shut behind him.

Harry retreats to the corner and when the door next opens, it's Voldemort who enters. He inspects Bellatrix with mild curiosity before undoing the curse. He silences her attempt to speak with a sharp gesture and sends her out, turning to Harry.

"You impress me, Harry. Done correctly, that curse can kill."

"I wish it had."

He thinks Voldemort actually looks pleased at that.

"You will make an excellent addition to my ranks. You've already scared Dolohov."

"I'm not joining you."

"You will."

"Are you going to keep me locked up until I do?"

"Or until I deem you no longer worth the effort. I have tried bribery and gentle persuasion; you refused. Now you will join me or suffer."

Harry swallows dryly. "And if I keep saying no, you'll kill me."

"Yes."

"How long will that take?"

"A week. A month. A day. My moods are mercurial, Harry. Save us both the trouble and just say yes."

Harry shakes his head, pressing himself into the corner, and Voldemort leaves without another word.

_I really think you ought to say yes. I don't fancy sitting in this room for the rest of our life, however short it may be._

"I don't want to work for him."

_I don't want to die and neither do you, but we don't always get what we want. Look at me—you think I asked to be stuck inside your head?_

"I didn't want you in my head either."

_Like I said, we don't always get what we want and sometimes we have to do things we don't want. Just say yes. We can find out how to break the deal, live a long, fulfilling life full of Muggle torture and bowing to a man with half... our... power... You're having an idea. A bad idea._

"How is it a bad idea?"

 _How is it_ not _?_

"I'm no use—"

 _DON'T. Don't say it out loud. There could be eavesdropping spells all over the room. They're probably monitoring you_.

'Fine, but I'm no use to him in chains. He has to take them off at some point and when he does, I can Wish him dead.'

_Except Dumbledore reckons you can't._

'Dumbledore could be wrong.'

_And if he's not?_

'Then... then Voldemort turns into that smoke, spirit thing he became after he tried to kill me as a baby.'

 _You think_.

'Does it matter? As long as he's not a threat to us anymore. I don't want to spend the rest of my life killing Muggles and bowing to him. I just want... I just want to finish my education and die quietly.'

There's a long pause after that and he shivers, bringing his knees up and waiting for the torrent of abuse that's no doubt coming for expressing such a useless wish on how to spend the rest of his life, but when the voice finally speaks again, it's only three words and they're spoken with soft appreciation.

_You said us._

* * *

Early on Friday evening—the day after James and Harry go missing—James appears in the middle of the Hogsmeade High Street, unconscious, an unmarked handkerchief wrapped around his fingers. He appears unharmed and is carried into the Three Broomsticks to get laid on a bed while Madam Rosmerta floo calls the Aurors.

* * *

Not long after Voldemort's left, the door opens again and Dolohov returns with another bowl of soup, a slice of bread, and a glass of water. He sets them down in the middle of the room, repairs the broken chair, then approaches Harry, who tenses but doesn't get up, keeping his broken arm against his chest, but Dolohov casts a Full Body Bind on him and he topples over, stiff as a board. Dolohov crouches by him and taps his wand to Harry's arm, which, to his surprise, heals and the pain starts to fade. Dolohov rises again, backing away and removing the Body Bind only when he's right at the door. Harry sits up as the man leaves, testing his arm and finding it stiff and sore, but definitely healed.

 _He's not all bad then,_ the voice remarks.

"That's what he wants me to think," Harry replies, crawling over to the tray, grabbing the water and gulping half of it down before he's struck by the horrifying thought that it might be poisoned.

_He wants to recruit you; he won't poison us._

"Let's hope not," Harry mutters, setting the glass down and reaching for the soup.

* * *

James wakes up to find Lupin bent over him, looking worried.

"Sirius, he's awake!"

He pushes himself into a sitting position as Sirius comes over, looking around to find himself in his bedroom at Black Stag House.

"Prongs, you alright?"

He nods, frowning. "How did I get here? Where's Harry?"

"You don't remember?" Sirius asks him.

"Remember what? Did something happen?"

Lupin perches on the edge of the bed, looking at him sadly. "You and Harry were kidnapped from the Three Broomsticks yesterday after Harry finished his exams. You turned up again in Hogsmeade via Portkey just this evening."

"Harry?" James asks urgently. Lupin shakes his head.

"Prongs, can you remember anything?" Sirius asks, but James look at him despairingly.

"The last thing I remember is meeting Harry at Hogwarts after his last exam. That's it."

* * *

 _You're determined then?_ the voice says when Harry's finished eating. _You're certain of our answer?_

'Our?'

_Yes, our. We are one. If you're determined to say no, I will stand by your decision. I can't say that I like it, but... I understand. He did kill your mother and has done his level best to kill us. You realise what this means for us._

Harry retreats to the corner, sitting with his knees drawn up and arms tucked in. 'We're going to die. Soon.'

_Not before we've suffered. They will torture us, humiliate us, rape us. Whatever they think will drive us to join him._

'At least I'll die with my morals in tact.'

_And probably screaming._

'Are you still trying to stop me?'

_Just making sure you know what's in store for us. Decisions shouldn't be made without all the information._

Maybe a few hours after Harry's finished eating, the door opens again but it's not Voldemort or Dolohov—it's Bellatrix. Harry watches her come over, wary but not moving from his corner. He doesn't like the predatory grin on her face or the way she twirls her wand between her fingers.

"The Dark Lord said you and I can have a play," she says, and the grin widens when he stiffens. "Lucius tells me you're all messed up in your head and if we're not careful your brain will turn to mush, but I want to see for myself."

She points the wand at him and he shrinks in on himself, holding his chained hands up like it'll stop whatever's coming, then she cries, " _Crucio!_ " and pain explodes across every nerve in his body.


	58. Chapter 58

It's been four days since Harry was kidnapped and that's how many times Voldemort's come to ask him if he's ready to join his ranks. He says no every time, but it's not easy; he wants to say yes to make the pain stop and he's almost certain the only reason he doesn't is because the voice screams at him whenever he considers it. He gets a meal twice a day—a bowl of soup, a slice of bread, and a glass of water, just like the first time—and sometimes Bellatrix or Dolohov will come and 'convince' him to join the ranks. Bellatrix tortures him; she's forbidden from using the Cruciatus anymore as it makes him seize every time and Voldemort doesn't want his mind breaking, but she's creative enough with other curses. Dolohov takes a different route; he talks, trying to convince Harry to join by making him agree with Voldemort's ideals.

On the fifth day, the tall man who chased him out of the Riddle House with Bellatrix comes to visit. Harry sits on the edge of the bed, watching the man warily, waiting to see if he'll copy Bellatrix or take Dolohov's route. When the man takes his chin in hand and lifts his head, Harry jerks away.

"Don't touch me."

"Handsome enough," the man remarks, ignoring Harry's comment. "Skinny, though. I generally prefer my boys with more meat on them."

Harry frowns, but says snappily, "Then tell Voldemort to give me more than bread and soup to eat."

The man laughs dryly. "No one tells the Dark Lord what to do. But you have nerve, boy, saying his name in his house."

"I'll call him what I want when he's locking me up."

The man sits on the bed and Harry stands up to move away, but the man grabs his arm and jerks him back down. His hand remains clamped on Harry's elbow and the other settles on Harry's thigh, rubbing it as he leans in to nuzzle his face in Harry's hair. Harry squirms away and tries to push him off, but the man shoves him down onto the bed and crawls over him.

"I've heard you're dating the Malfoy boy," the man remarks, ignoring Harry's efforts to push him off, brushing his fingers against Harry's cheek, "but I think you're still a virgin, aren't you?"

"Get off me," Harry demands and the man smiles.

"Definitely a virgin; that blush says everything."

"Get off!"

"It'll feel good," the man says softly, cupping Harry's cheek. "It might hurt a bit, but it'll feel good, if you're a good boy."

Harry lashes up with his hands, trying to bash the shackles against the man, and struggles harder, trying to kick him as well. "Get off! Don't touch me, just get off!"

He manages to hit the man across the face, but it only serves to annoy him and he grabs the chain between the two shackles, jerking Harry's hands over his head and holding them there with one hand while he draws his wand with the other. He casts a Sticking Spell on the shackles, trapping them to the headboard, and sits up, using the weight of his body to pin Harry down at the thighs.

"Stop struggling," the man orders. "I know you want it and this fighting for the sake of pretending otherwise will only make things more painful for you. If you don't want it to hurt, don't fight."

"I don't want it!" Harry refutes, incredulous that he could suggest otherwise. "I want you to leave me alone!"

The man smirks, waving his wand over Harry and saying a spell. All of Harry's clothes vanish and he gasps at the sudden shock of cold air against his skin, while fear floods through him as he realises he really can't stop this man.

 _Don't say yes,_ the voice says angrily, as it has every time the thought has flicked through Harry's mind over the past four days. _We will not join him. We can endure anything they do to us._

"All teenage boys want sex," the man says, putting aside his wand and putting both hands to Harry's torso, curling them around his ribs, making a small noise of appreciation as he fingers the soft skin. "It's all you think about, all you want. I was your age once, so I know. But if pretending otherwise is your preference, then so be it. I'll still indulge your desires, no matter how much you deny them."

"Don't!" Harry cries as the hands move down his waist and towards his hips. "Please, don't. Just leave me alone."

"Much skinnier than I prefer," the man murmurs, ignoring his pleas, "but very beautiful. I'm going to enjoy this."

* * *

"You have one minute, Assistant," Voldemort says to the man kneeling before him.

"My lord, please, stop my Master from raping Harry."

"Your jealousy is none of my concern, Assistant. This is why I forbid you to enter the room."

"This isn't jealously. My lord, please, don't let him do it. It won't help your cause. It'd be more likely to convince Harry if you stop my Master; he'll feel indebted to you for stepping in. A measure of kindness after the pain he's endured would be a huge step towards convincing him to join you. I'm begging you, just stop this. That's all I ask of you."

* * *

Harry never thought he'd be glad to see Bellatrix Lestrange, but he's beyond grateful when the door opens and she steps inside, prompting the man to stop kissing Harry's neck while he fondles him.

"Get off him."

The man doesn't move except to frown at Bellatrix. "You have had all week, Lestrange, and pain has done little to convince him. Pleasure might."

"The Dark Lord says you're to leave him alone."

"Did he give a reason?" the man asks with a scowl, but he climbs off Harry.

"Ask your pet."

Harry doesn't know what she means by that, but the man clearly does as his expression darkens and he snatches up the robe he'd removed, storming out the room. Bellatrix spares Harry a glances, eyes lingering on the stuck chains, and leaves without releasing him. When the door's shut, Harry tugs at the shackles, trying to get them free, but gives up when it becomes clear they won't budge, and instead squirms and twists to get under the blankets. He manages to cover his groin and most of his legs, which is better at least.

He stays trapped until Dolohov brings him his dinner, but although his hands are freed, he doesn't get any new clothes to replace the vanished ones, forcing him to wrap himself in the blanket from the bed, not easy when his hands are chained together.

* * *

The Assistant's not surprised when Yaxley orders him back to the apartment and hits him with a Cruciatus after casting a Silencing Charm on the entire flat. He says nothing when it's over, nor when Yaxley snarls a Bone Breaking Hex and the Assistant's wrist snaps, then his upper arm, then several ribs, his pelvis, his leg, his foot. He lies on the floor, breathing harshly and not moving as Yaxley stalks up to him and slams his foot into the Assistant's gut.

"Don't ever go over my head again. The Dark Lord may be master of both of us, but you're still mine and I will not be embarrassed like that. You can heal yourself in a few hours after you've thought about what you've done."

* * *

If he believed in a god then Snape might think that being forced to listen to his son's screams sounding from the floor above him is some kind of divine punishment for not being an even semi-decent father. But he doesn't, so he stands and seethes silently, wondering what crime he's committed against Voldemort to be given such a punishment. He doesn't doubt that that's what this is. Being called and then told to wait before seeing Voldemort is always a punishment, a chance for the Death Eater in question to sweat; listening to Harry scream is just an extra personal touch.

It's been little over a week since Harry was taken. Snape's been kept completely in the dark until now, which isn't surprising but has driven him to down a shot of vodka or three every night as he tried not to think about where his son is and what might be happening to him. When his Mark burns just an hour after the Hogwarts Express takes the students home for the summer, he's never been so grateful to feel it. Finally he'll find out what happened and figure out how to get Harry safe again, even if it means losing his position of trust with Voldemort.

He's been there ten minutes when the screams ease off. A few minutes later, footsteps come down the stairs and Bellatrix appears. She glances at Snape, overly cheerful as she greets him and saunters past. Snape stares at the door to the living room. Five minutes pass without any sign that Voldemort's ready to see him, then ten, fifteen, twenty, and before Snape knows what he's doing he's climbing the stairs. He freezes on the second floor landing, chiding himself. He shouldn't do it. Likely this is the whole point of leaving him waiting for so long, a test to see if he'll go to Harry. And what's in store for him if he fails it?

What's in store for Harry if he doesn't?

* * *

Harry whimpers when he hears the door start to open. Bellatrix used an Itching Hex, casting it over and over until he shrieked and writhed, scratching at his skin and begging for it to stop. He doesn't know how he managed to not say yes this time; the word hangs at the forefront of his mind and on the tip of his tongue, but despite everything he never manages to make himself say it. Now he drifts on the brink of unconsciousness, but he doesn't think for a second that passing out will discourage his torturer. She'll just drag him back into consciousness again with _rennervate_ and laugh when he starts screaming.

The moment Snape lays his eyes on the huddled form on the bed, he's rushing over, pulling off his mask as he kneels. Harry's naked and his skin is marked with red scratches all over, but he has a blanket loosely clutched in his hands and his wrists are locked in chains. He shrinks back when Snape kneels by him, not even opening his eyes, and when Snape reaches out to touch his shoulder, he flinches violently.

"I'm not going to hurt you."

Harry stiffens, wondering if he's hearing things, and hesitantly opens his eyes to see Snape kneeling by him, and he feels like crying.

"I'm not going to hurt you," Snape says again, his voice soft, apologetic.

"Help me," Harry begs, pushing himself up on shaking arms. Snape's hands curl around his arms, holding him gently. "Please. I'm sorry I was a brat to you, just please get us out of here."

"Don't apologise to me."

" _Please_."

_There's no point. He's a spy, remember? If he helps you, Voldemort will know he's a traitor._

Harry shakes his head. "No, you said he cared. You said that."

"Said who cared?" Snape asks, confused.

_Oh, he cares when it's easy. He cares when you're not a dependent child who needs regular care and attention, he cares when you're succeeding in exams, but he won't care when it matters. He won't care now. Voldemort kills traitors. If he helps you, he'll die. Do you think he cares enough to die for you?_

Harry draws back. "You should go," he says in a small voice, not looking at Snape. "If he finds you..."

"I'm getting you out."

Harry glances up as Snape draws his wand. "He'll kill you."

"Harry, I have failed you too many times to do it again. I know I've been a shit father and I don't expect this to make up for what I've done, but I'm not leaving you here. The Order can find a new spy."

"I sincerely wish you hadn't said that, Severus."

Snape spins as he stands, pointing his wand at Voldemort as he steps into the doorway, but it leaps out of his fingers and flies across to the corner of the room, where the Assistant materialises and snatches it out of the air.

"James Potter told Lucius you were telling Dumbledore more than I allowed, but I confess I'd hoped he was mistaken. I'm disappointed in you, Severus. Cage him," Voldemort orders the Assistant. "I want him to watch his child break."

"My lord," the Assistant begins, but Voldemort cuts him off.

"Argue with me, Assistant, and you can join him."

Snape lifts off his feet and levitates over to the corner of the room as Voldemort leaves. He hits the wall gently and a curved row of bars materialise six feet in front of him, reaching wall to wall and just wide enough apart to fit an arm through. Snape's set down again and he stares through the bars at the Assistant with pure loathing as a bucket appears at Snape's feet.

"You should have left him, Severus," the Assistant says sadly.

"He's my son," Snape snarls.

"You had no problem leaving him with the Dursleys."

"Don't you dare judge me, Assistant. It's not your place."

The Assistant says nothing, holding his gaze for moment then lifting his hand and summoning the mask Snape discarded, tucking it in his pocket. He glances at Harry and waves his hand, conjuring clothes directly onto his body, drawing a look of surprise and gratitude from him before he leaves.

_Well I guess that settles it. Daddy does care after all._

"You need to make your mind up. Does he, doesn't he? Which is it?"

_Ask him yourself._

Harry glances over at Snape, who's staring at him from between the bars. "You really do hear voices," he says quietly. "I assumed you'd said that to trick the Dark Lord last summer."

Harry pulls his blanket over him, huddling on the bed and shivering despite his newly conjured clothes.

"How long has this been going on?"

"I don't know," Harry says. "I can't keep track of the days in this place."

"I meant how long have you been hearing voices."

"I don't hear voices, I just hear one. Oh, shut up, what's it matter if I tell him? We're probably both going to die." He glances over to Snape. "How long has it been since they took me?"

"Just over a week. It's the twenty-ninth. How long have you been hearing a voice in your head?"

"Ever since Professor Moody—Crouch—used the Imperius on us, before the Triwizard Tournament."

"Have you told anyone? Black or Lupin?"

Harry shakes his head.

"Why?"

"I didn't want to get locked up for being crazy."

Snape has no response to that, so instead he asks, "What does it say?"

Harry shrugs. "Stuff."

"Such as?"

"Right now it's saying you're a nosy git."

"How polite," Snape drawls.

* * *

Two days later the Assistant storms into the meeting room with a scowl on his face, bowing stiffly to Voldemort and ignoring Lucius and Bellatrix.

"I've grown impatient waiting for Harry to break. It is time for some new incentive. I want Sirius Black caught and brought back here. With Harry chained, I expect you'll have an easier time overpowering the protections on their house."

"Yes, my lord. You two ready?"

Bellatrix scowls at being addressed so curtly. Lucius raises an eyebrow. "You're eager."

"I was in the middle of something. The sooner we're done, the sooner I can get back to it."

"Did it happen to involve Yaxley's cock up your arse, by any chance?"

"It did, in fact. Are we going or do you need to hear the details first?"

Bellatrix rolls her eyes and vanishes with a crack. The Assistant and Lucius follow. Voldemort, now alone, lets out an aggrieved sigh.

"I thought Yaxley's tastes ran more towards teenagers," Bellatrix remarks when they reappear in Coleford. The Assistant shrouds the three of them in invisibility and approaches the only house on the road, stopping just beyond the edge of the front garden. He tries to step past but Harry's protections are still in place and he can't step off the road. "Bit old for him, aren't you?"

"Do you think I only use my power for the Dark Lord?" the Assistant replies, crouching and pressing his hand to the ground. "I'm essentially a Metamorph and can make myself look like anyone, Bella, without the trouble of Polyjuice Potion."

"Does that include women?" Lucius asks curiously.

"Yes. Now be quiet, I'm trying to concentrate."

* * *

Harry sits on the bed, hands clamped to his ears in a vain attempt to drown out the sound of his father's screams, but it does little to dull them and he scrambles up, lunging at the masked man who's torturing Snape and slamming into him, knocking them both to the floor and sending the man's wand flying. Snape's screams die and Harry hurries up, diving towards the wand only for the man to grab him about the waist and drag him back to the floor again.

"No, you don't," the man growls. "I've heard you can still use wands. You're not getting mine."

He smacks his fist into the side of Harry's face with enough force to make Harry see stars, leaving him slumped on the floor while the man gets up and retrieves his wand. He pockets it and then approaches Harry again, who starts to sit up only to get roughly grabbed by the shoulder and turned over, pushed onto his front and pinned down.

"Nott!" Snape yells, hauling himself up inside his cage. "Don't you fucking touch him!"

Harry wonders why he's objecting so violently now when he'd stuck with useless threats and silent seething when Bellatrix came to torture him, but then Nott yanks down Harry's trousers and he realises what the man's planning to do.

"No! Don't!"

Nott ignores him, overpowering Harry's efforts to get away and jerking his hips up, forcing his knees under him then pinning him down by the neck with one hand while he unzips himself with the other.

"Nonononono, don't, please. Please stop," Harry begs, struggling furiously to get away.

"Be quiet, child. It's not like you haven't done it before. My son told me you've been shagging Malfoy's boy for months."

"Get away from him, Nott!"

"I didn't, I didn't. We never—don't, please don't."

"You never did it?" Nott says, grin evident in his tone. "You're a virgin?"

" _NOTT!_ "

_We can endure. We—_

'I can't,' Harry thinks desperately. 'I can't, it's too much. I've had enough, I want it to stop.'

 _You made your decision_ , the voice snarls. _You said you wouldn't. You will stand by it. I demand you stand by it._

He shakes his head. Nott's fingers are pressing at his arse, Snape is screaming, and Harry knows he's reached his limit.

_You haven't. You can endure this. We can endure—_

"Alright! I say yes, I'll join him. Just don't, please, please don't. I'll join him. I'll join him."

He feels Nott freeze, one hand still holding Harry down while the other is pressed against his arse.

 _You... you said it,_ the voice says with so much disbelief Harry actually feels ashamed, but it's too late and even so, there's a spark of relief inside of him now. It'll be over.

"You heard him," he hears Snape say, voice shaking slightly. "Get off him, Nott, and fetch your master."

For a moment Nott doesn't move, then his hand leaves Harry's arse but instead of pulling away Harry hears him fumbling for his wand. "No," he says, pointing it Harry. "No, I want this. _Silencio!_ "

Harry screams an objection, but no noise leaves him, and he hears Nott cast the spell again to silence Snape's shouts, leaving Harry with only the horrid sounds of flesh on flesh and Nott's satisfied grunting.

_We can endure._

'Shut up,' Harry thinks, tears spilling down his face. 'Just fucking shut up.'

To his surprise, it does.

* * *

"We're in."

The Assistant straightens up and Lucius and Bellatrix turn their attention to the house, wands out and ready to use. The three of them move towards the front door, but the Assistant pauses before they reach it.

"Oh, fuck."

"What?"

In answer, he just lifts a hand and points at the sky.

"It's a cloud," Lucius drawls, "and... shit."

The three of them glance at each other as the full moon drifts back behind a cloud, silently wondering if they dare go back and tell Voldemort they'd rather try another time, and just as silently agreeing that they'd rather face a werewolf than Voldemort's wrath.

"You go first," Bellatrix says to the Assistant. "You're the strongest."

"Thanks," he mutters, but takes a deep breath and touches a hand to the front door, hearing the lock click then pushing it open. The house beyond is silent, dark, and seemingly empty, until they head upstairs. Sirius attacks them the moment they reach the top of the stairs, sticking his wand out his bedroom door and firing curses blindly. The Assistant throws up a shield but they remain crouched on the stairs.

"Give it up, Black, it's three on one!" Lucius calls.

"Three on two, Malfoy, and I've got a werewolf who'll gladly rip your throat out!" Sirius calls back. "I like my odds!"

Lucius smiles. "Is my precious James in there with you?"

"He's not yours!"

Lucius laughs. "You make it too easy, Black. Precious, stun him, then forget doing so."

"Like he's—whoa, hey, Prongs, wha-"

There's a flash of red and a thump, then a growl, a shout, another flash of red and another thud.

The three Death Eaters edge into the room slowly, standing out of the line of fire as the Assistant pushes the door open. Sirius is slumped on the floor near the door, unconscious, and further in the room Moony's also unconscious, sprawled across James' chest. James struggles for breath under the weight of the wolf and his wand is several feet away, well out of his reach.

"Grab Sirius and let's go," the Assistant says, stepping over the man and keeping his gaze fixed on James and Moony, stunning James with a flick of his hand.

"We need to memory charm the wolf," Lucius says. "If he was with them and not dangerous then he was using Wolfsbane which means he'll remember me ordering James."

The Assistant makes an unhappy noise and edges closer to Moony and James. He keeps his eyes fixed on Moony's jaws as he crouches and hesitantly reaches out to lay a hand on his neck. Memory charming animals—even just humans-as-animals—is trickier than humans and he needs the physical contact to do it right. He silently curses Voldemort for not considering the moon phase when he sent them out and hopes Yaxley's going to give him a damn good orgasm later. He deserves one for this.

When Moony lunges, all three Death Eaters yell—Lucius and Bellatrix from surprise, the Assistant from pain as jaws clamp down on his arm. He's knocked back, the air knocked out of him as he hits the floor, ribs snapping as the full weight of a wolf slams down on his chest and claws rake through his clothes to tear into the flesh underneath. Then Moony's jumping off him and leaping towards Lucius and Bellatrix. Lucius grabs Sirius and Disapparates, but Bellatrix staggers back, flings out her wand, and yells, " _Avada Kedavra!_ "

Green light slams into the wolf in mid jump, throwing him back to drop to the floor with a thump, where his body twists and contorts, and moments later Lupin is lying there, amber eyes staring lifelessly at the air in front of him.


	59. Chapter 59

When Nott's finally finished, Harry falls onto his side, curling in on himself and closing his eyes, tears dripping down his face and trembling from head to toe. In the cage, Snape's own tear-streaked face is twisted with mixed fury and anguish. Nott picks up his wand, cleans himself up and straightens his clothes, then casts a memory charm on them both to make them forget Harry ever agreed to join Voldemort, and leaves after removing the Silencing Charms.

* * *

"Where's the Assistant?" Voldemort says when Bellatrix appears shortly after Lucius turns up with Sirius.

"He was attacked by Lupin," Lucius answers. "The wolf bit him."

"It's dead now," Bellatrix says carelessly. "I made sure of that."

"The Assistant?" Voldemort says.

"Don't know. He was bleeding bad, but if he's still alive then he's infected. He's just an animal now." She pauses then asks hopefully, "Would you like him put down too?"

* * *

In a flat in London, Yaxley jerks awake with a gasp, feeling like he's been hit in the chest with a sledgehammer. He scrambles out of bed, grabbing his robes and pulling them on carelessly then Disapparating.

He reappears in the master bedroom of the Marauders house, eyes going wide as he takes in the scene—Lupin dead, James unconscious, and the Assistant on the floor, barely conscious and covered in blood.

"Heal yourself!" Yaxley demands urgently, kneeling by the Assistant. "Harry, I'm ordering you now, heal yourself!"

The Assistant coughs weakly, specks of blood flying from his mouth, and struggles to draw breath even as the vicious wounds across his chest begin to seal themselves shut and his ribs snap back into place. One of them has punctured his lung, but his breathing doesn't ease much even when that's healed, not until he manages to roll onto his side and cough up the blood that seeped into his lung.

Yaxley jerks his head up when he hears footsteps on the stairs. He grabs the Assistant's arm, ignoring the pained cry it elicits, and hisses, "Get us out."

They vanish. The Assistant immediately starts coughing again when he and Yaxley reappear in Yaxley's flat, spitting blood on the bedroom floor. His left arm is still bleeding profusely, the bite the only injury that hasn't been healed.

"I told you to heal yourself," Yaxley says, looking at the blood now covering his own hands.

"Werewolf bite," the Assistant gasps. "Cursed wound. Can't cure."

Yaxley freezes, staring at his hands. "You were bit?"

"No more special place for me among the ranks," the Assistant says weakly. "Amazing how a simple thing can ruin one's social position so easily."

Yaxley says nothing, just gets to his feet and hurries out and across to his bathroom to desperately wash the blood from his hands.

* * *

Dumbledore responds too late to Sirius' emergency call, reaching the doorway of the master bedroom just in time to see the Assistant and Yaxley disappear. He goes straight to James, because he doesn't need to check to know Lupin's dead, and is relived to find him alive at least.

"Are you injured?" he asks as soon as he wakes the man.

James shakes his head at Dumbledore's question, sitting up, eyes going wide when he sees the mess the bedroom's in then he notices Lupin and the blood drains from his face.

"Moony?"

"James, I need to know what happened."

But James isn't listening. He pushes Dumbledore aside and scrambles over to Lupin, pulling him onto his back, hands shaking as he looks into the lifeless eyes.

"No."

"I'm sorry, James."

"No, no, no..." He trails off, looking around, taking in the blood covering the floor. "Sirius..."

"I don't think this is his blood, James. The Assistant was here and injured. Tell me what happened."

* * *

"Something's bothering you," the Assistant says a little while later, when he's cleaned up and his arm is wrapped in bandages. "Something more than just my injury. What is it?"

He's still sat on the floor of the bedroom, leant back against the bed and watching Yaxley, who's sat in the chair in the corner of the room. They're both dressed in clean robes and there's a faint smell of burnt fabric permeating the entire flat. The Assistant's cloak lies across the bed, the only item of clothing that hasn't been burned. It survived Lupin's attack, being so heavily enchanted, but although the Assistant has got most of the blood out of it there's still a faint reddish tinge to it.

"Dumbledore saw me."

The Assistant straightens up. "He was there?"

"Just as we left." His fingers tap against the arm of the chair. "My entire worth is in the fact that I'm trusted within the Ministry. If they suspect my true loyalty..."

"Dumbledore probably already knew given that Severus is a traitor, and he's a wanted man right now anyway, but I can hide your Mark if you like, make it only visible to certain people."

Yaxley says nothing. The Assistant gets to his feet, wincing slightly.

"I have to report. Am I allowed back afterwards?"

"Why wouldn't you be?"

"Even if I couldn't feel your disgust, I can see it in your eyes, Master. I've been a werewolf before; I know how I'm going to be treated from now on. You've likely already considered asking the Dark Lord to transfer my Bond to someone else."

"For now, you're still mine," Yaxley says, but he doesn't deny it. "So you'll return here when the Dark Lord is done with you."

* * *

Snape lowers his hands from his face and looks up when the door opens then gets to his feet when he sees Sirius stumble through, pushed in by the Assistant, his hands bound in front of him. Harry is back on the bed, cocooned in the blanket and facing the wall. He hasn't spoken a word since Nott left. Sirius' gaze fixes instantly on him and he jerks away from the Assistant, moving with surprising nimbleness despite his bound hands, rushing over to Harry and dropping onto the bed beside him to lay his hands against Harry's shoulder. Harry stiffens.

"Harry? Come on, kid, look at me, will you?"

Harry slowly turns his head and peers up at him. "Sirius?"

"Hey, kid."

Harry's sits up, eyes flicking around the room to linger briefly on the Assistant but completely avoiding Snape before looking back to Sirius.

"Are you real?" he asks in a small voice.

"Yeah, I'm real. What have they done to you?"

His question makes Harry shrink in on himself and flick his eyes away, but he doesn't answer. Sirius takes one of his hands, squeezing it gently.

"It'll be alright, kid. We'll get out of this. Alive. I promise you."

"Don't." Snape, voice harsh. Sirius looks over at him to see his expression one of familiar contempt. "Don't make promises you can't keep, Black."

"Such wise words, Severus," comes a cold, high voice. Sirius gets to his feet, keeping himself between Harry and Voldemort as he enters the room. "You should heed them, Black."

Voldemort flicks his wand. Sirius is tossed aside and slams into the bars of Snape's cage before dropping to the floor with a grunt. Voldemort gestures to the Assistant, who goes to the fallen man and puts a foot on his chest to hold him down when he tries to stand. Voldemort moves over to Harry, who looks up at him but doesn't move.

"Will you join me, Harry?"

"The hell he will!" Sirius yells. "Harry, tell him no."

_Why aren't you saying no? It's simple. One word. No. Just say it, you moron. We've held out this long._

"I don't want to get hurt anymore."

"Say yes and you won't be," Voldemort promises.

_You'll just be used to kill and torture people instead, which you claim you don't want to do. You'll sacrifice your morals._

"Beats getting tortured myself. Or—" He breaks off, unable to say it. Sirius' eyebrows draw together in confusion and the Assistant frowns, but Snape just watches silently.

 _That's exactly the reason we shouldn't work for him. He tortured us, had us raped_ —Harry flinches— _and if we could say no through that we can say no now. He doesn't deserve our loyalty. He killed your mother. He's locked your daddy in a cage for trying to help you. Now he's kidnapped your godfather as well. He's a bully and we hate bullies more than anything._

"You think saying no's going to make things better? You were pretty eager to sign up when he first offered."

"Who's he talking to?"

Harry ducks his head, hands raising to tangle in his hair.

"He has a voice in his head," Snape answers Sirius.

"You're kidding, right?" Sirius says, glancing between him and Harry, but Snape's face is perfectly serious. "You're not kidding. Great, my godson's crazy. He gets that from you, you know. There's no way he got it from Lily."

"I'm not crazy!"

Sirius jumps at Harry's outburst, looking over to see him glaring through his arms. "I'm not crazy," he says again. "I'm not."

Sirius nods. "Alright."

_He doesn't believe you._

"Course he doesn't believe me. Why should he?"

"Your sanity is irrelevant," Voldemort says with a touch of impatience. "Will you join me or not?"

Harry flicks his gaze up, then back to Sirius, to Snape, to the Assistant, back to Sirius, then looking at Voldemort again. "No."

Voldemort turns. "Assistant, you're no longer needed."

The Assistant takes his foot from Sirius' chest but makes no move to leave. "My lord, I'd like to be allowed to stay."

"No."

"My lord—"

"No. Go to Yaxley. You were quite eager to return to him earlier. Stay with him until morning."

The Assistant grits his teeth, but it's a direct order so he bows his head, murmurs, "Yes, my lord," and leaves.

"Is this where you makes us watch you torture him?" Sirius asks, pushing himself into a sitting position.

"No," Voldemort answers coldly, drawing his wand. "This is where I make _him_ watch as I torture _you_."

Fear flickers across Sirius' face, but he pushes it down, meeting Voldemort's gaze coolly, not wanting Harry to see him scared. Harry draws his hands down, staring wide-eyed at Voldemort like he's not sure he trusts what he's hearing.

" _Crucio!_ "

" _NO!_ "

Harry throws himself off the bed, chains rattling as he scrambles to reach Sirius. Voldemort turns his wand on him, Sirius' screams dying, and casts a Tripping Jinx that sends Harry to the floor, where a Sticking Spell locks his chains to the floor and keeps Harry from getting any closer.

" _Crucio_."

* * *

The Assistant Apparates into Yaxley's living room to find him lounging in his armchair with a glass of whiskey while Frederick Nott is sprawled on the sofa with an empty glass of his own. Nott glances at the Assistant with a disdainful look that the Assistant returns.

"Didn't anyone tell you it's rude to Apparate into a person's home?" Nott asks snottily.

"Didn't anyone tell you it's rude to look at people with a face as ugly as yours?"

"Assistant," Yaxley scolds. "Get in the bedroom."

The Assistant heads for it, ignoring the whipping noise Nott makes as he goes. He doesn't shut the door behind him fully, so he can still hear them when Nott speaks.

"When are you going to get yourself a wife, Preston? You're too old to be shacking up with boys."

"Says the man who's bragging that his most recent conquest is a teenager."

"That's different. You can bugger all the boys you like, but you should have a wife at home. Or are you planning to change the Assistant's gender? You've certainly got him whipped into obedience for the position."

"Sexist twat," the Assistant mutters, kicking off his shoes and flopping onto the bed, wincing as he knocks his damaged arm. Only Lucius and Bellatrix are aware of the Bond between the Assistant and Yaxley, as Voldemort prefers to let the other Death Eaters think he was able to gain the Assistant's loyalty without needing to magically force it.

He closes his eyes, exhaustion pulling at him, then forces them open again. He can't sleep now. He needs to figure out a plan to free Snape. When Harry agrees to join Voldemort, and the Assistant doesn't doubt for a moment that he will when Sirius is tortured, Snape will be killed. The Assistant doesn't want that to happen and he's willing to reveal himself a traitor to save him, but he'd rather avoid as much pain from the Bond while he does it. The order to remain with Yaxley until dawn is simple enough to twist; he'll just take Yaxley with him back to Riddle Manor. Getting Snape out of his cage will be harder—the orders clearly state he isn't to release Snape without Voldemort's explicit permission, though he supposes he could put a compulsion on Voldemort. There's still the problem that he's been ordered not to betray Voldemort and there's no way he can twist the meaning in that. Although, he considers, perhaps if he uses the Imperius on one of the other Death Eaters, he might be able to trick the Bond into thinking he's not betraying Voldemort. He's had no orders not to put curses on other Death Eaters, after all...

* * *

"Stop it!"

"Say yes."

"Stop it, just stop it, please!"

Voldemort lowers his wand and Sirius' screams taper off, leaving him gasping for breath and still twitching slightly.

"Join me, Harry."

"Don't," Sirius says hoarsely. "Not because of me."

"Join me."

Harry shakes his head, sobbing and pulling uselessly at his chains.

" _Crucio_."

* * *

"Get up!"

The Assistant groans, blinking his eyes open and looking up at Yaxley. "Why?"

"Because you're taking up half the bed and you're not even undressed."

The Assistant closes his eyes again, only to get slapped for his trouble. He grumbles and forces himself to get up, staggering over to the chair in the corner and collapsing into it, leaning his head back and closing his eyes again. He'll take his boots off in a minute, just as soon as he's had a little more rest—

He snaps his eyes open. No, he can't sleep. He needs to save Snape.

He jerks his gaze over to the clock on the wall. It reads just after one in the morning—over an hour since he left the Riddle House, and he curses himself for falling asleep.

Yaxley, undressing by the bed, shoots him a disdainful look. "What is the matter with you?"

"Nothing. What's the matter with you? You're in a worse mood than when I left earlier."

Yaxley tugs the shirt off his back with unnecessary force. "Frederick was allowed to bugger the Evans' boy. He took something that should have been mine. That's your fault."

The Assistant's lip curls and he gets to his feet, moving towards the door. "I guess that explains why you're friends with him. All rapists together."

Yaxley's eyes narrow. He crosses the space between them in two steps and backhand slaps the Assistant hard enough to knock him back a step. "Don't ever call me that again."

"It's true."

Yaxley goes for his wand that time, jerking it sideways and muttering a spell that has an invisible hand smacking the Assistant with enough force to send him staggering to one knee, a harsh red hand print springing up on his cheek.

"I am not a rapist."

The Assistant looks up at him. "What do you call attempting to fuck a kidnapped and chained teenage boy then?"

"He wanted it."

"That's bullshit," the Assistant snarls, rearing up only for Yaxley to cast the spell again, knocking him back to the floor.

"He wanted it. He was responding before the Dark Lord called me off. I don't assault people, I have sex with people and they enjoy it. I make sure they enjoy it. Anyone who says otherwise is a liar. Including you."

"You rape people," the Assistant spits. "You just won't admit it. At least Nott knows he's a piece of shit. You think that stimulating a reaction out of someone counts as consent. _It doesn't_."

Yaxley flicks his wand. There's a noise like a whip cracking and the Assistant cries out as his trouser leg splits apart and a gash of red appears along his thigh. "I," Yaxley says, flicking his wand again and this time the Assistant's shirt splits, blood welling in a slash across his abdomen. "Am not." Another whip crack and a gash appears on his right arm. "A rapist." A final flick and red cuts across his face. "If someone didn't want to have sex, they wouldn't react. It is as simple as that."

Blood drips from each of the Assistant's wounds and his breathing is harsh, the attack straining his poorly healed lung. He says nothing, but looks up at Yaxley with loathing in his eyes. Yaxley looks him over disdainfully then bends and grabs him by the collar.

"Get out," he says, shoving him towards the bedroom door. "I do not want you in my bed tonight."

The Assistant crawls out the door, barely over the threshold before it snaps shut behind him, then collapses to the floor with a groan and presses a shaking hand to the gash on his abdomen, the worst of the four. At least now he can return to Riddle Manor alone without the Bond punishing him; Yaxley's orders trump Voldemort's and his 'get out' is vague enough that the Bond won't hurt him for extending the meaning to getting out of the flat instead of just the bedroom.

He just needs to find the energy to do it and clean himself up first. He uses magic to strip himself to his boxers, conjures bandages and, still using magic, wraps them around his arm and leg then conjures butterfly strips for his cheek, and sticks a wound dressing over his stomach. He conjures clean clothes directly onto his body and fumbles his cloak clasp, eventually getting it settled back in place. He has to pause for a moment then, needing to collect some energy before he Apparates to the Riddle House. Maybe sleep for half an hour. Just a nap. Voldemort will want to make Harry's initiation a big deal anyway, so the Assistant has time before it happens. The same goes for Snape's death. He'll want to use it to make a point about what happens to traitors. So really, the Assistant can afford to sleep, just for a little while, just to let himself recover a bit from being attacked by a werewolf and assaulted by his Master. Snape will be fine for a while longer yet, he's sure.

* * *

"Alright!"

Voldemort lowers his wand, turning slowly to face Harry. "Say that again."

Harry lifts his head from where it's pressed to the floor. Sirius lies whimpering, limbs jerking uncontrollably. He's not spoken for a while now and his screams have grown hoarse.

"Yes," Harry says, face full of anguish as he looks at Voldemort. "I'll join you, just please, please leave him alone."

A smile spreads across Voldemort's face. Snape buries his face in his hands.

Voldemort unsticks the chains and leaves. Harry doesn't spare a thought for where he's going or what'll happen next, just scurries over to Sirius on his hands and knees, bending over him and pulling his head onto his lap.

"Sirius? Sirius, can you hear me? Please say something."

"Got bony legs, kid," he says weakly, and Harry lets out a half sob, half laugh. "You said yes, didn't you?"

"I had to. I couldn't let him keep torturing you."

"So you're going to take after your dad?"

"I never wanted this for him," Snape says.

"Maybe if you'd been a better parent it wouldn't have happened."

"Maybe if you hadn't got yourself thrown in prison it wouldn't have happened. You're his godfather."

"You're his father. Responsibility—"

"Stop it," Harry interrupts. "Just... don't. Please. This has nothing to do with how I grew up."

Voldemort returns barely five minutes later.

"Stand up, Harry."

Harry carefully moves Sirius' head off his lap and gets to his feet, eying Voldemort warily.

"Stand in the corner."

Harry glances down at Sirius but does as ordered and moves over to the corner opposite Snape, watching Voldemort use his foot to push Sirius onto his back. Sirius manages to stare up at him hatefully, but he's still trembling from the Cruciatus and has no strength to try and fight him.

"What are you doing?" Harry asks in panicked voice when Voldemort points his wand at Sirius. "I said yes!"

"I am taking steps to ensure that yes doesn't become a no the moment those chains come off. _Verba mea mortiferæ_ Harry Evans has betrayed Lord Voldemort."

"What? I'm not—Sirius!"

Sirius arches off the floor, a blood red glow surrounding him as he inhales sharply. For several long seconds he stays suspended like that, then the red glow pulses outwards before being sucked into his body and he slumps back down, body going limp once more.

"What was that? What did you do to him?"

Voldemort looks to Snape, who's jaw is clenched tight as he stares at Sirius.

"Tell your son what I've done, Severus."

Snape lifts his gaze, angry dark eyes meeting satisfied red ones before he looks over at Harry. "It's called a Word of Death Curse. If he speaks those words, or even just thinks them with intention, then Black will die, no matter where he is or how far apart they are."

Voldemort turns to Harry. "Betray me and your godfather dies," he says coldly. "I will not have you take after your father and work against me for Albus Dumbledore. You will not attack me, you will not attack my followers, you will not seek revenge for what has been done to you. I am your lord and master now and you, Harry Evans, will obey my every command."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Verba mea mortiferæ = "my words bring death"


	60. Chapter 60

Harry stands in the Riddle House sitting room, hands still wrapped in chains, a slightly too big black robe over his jeans and t-shirt. Voldemort's in front of him, Lucius and Bellatrix standing behind him, Sirius is slumped against the wall by the door, and Snape's on his knees in front of Bellatrix, his wrists tied behind him. Harry's surprised the Assistant isn't there.

He keeps his gaze fixed on his arm when Voldemort pushes up his sleeve and touches his wand to the bared flesh, so he doesn't have to see whatever emotions are on Snape and Sirius' faces. The pain of the Dark Mark being branded onto his skin isn't even close to the pain he's felt lately and he endures it with only a wince and clenched teeth.

"Betray me and he dies," Voldemort say warningly when it's done.

"Yes... my lord."

Voldemort's expression is one of pure satisfaction as he touches his wand to Harry's chains. The moment they fall away, the torches on the walls flare brightly, the door rattles in it's frame, and the windows blow out. Only Snape doesn't look surprised.

"I didn't mean to," Harry says quickly, repairing the windows when Voldemort looks at him. "That happens. I can't control it."

Voldemort doesn't comment on it. "You will prove your loyalty to me now, Harry. Kill the traitor."

The air in the room seems to thicken. Sirius sits up straighter. Snape stiffens. Lucius' eyes widen. Bellatrix grins. Harry swallows.

"You're going to make him kill his own father?" Sirius says.

"A father who never cared for you," Voldemort says to Harry, "but by all means refuse me and I shall kill your godfather then kill Severus myself."

"You're a cruel bastard."

"Be quiet, Mr Black. Which will it be, Harry: your father or your godfather?"

"Do I get some last words?" Snape asks in a careless drawl.

"He's not even made a choice yet, Severus," Lucius says.

"There is no choice, Lucius. Why do you think it was Black the Dark Lord tortured to make him say yes and not me? Harry hates me, and justifiably so. I accepted that long ago and I am going to die anyway. I'd rather not leave my son without his godfather as well, no matter how much I might despise the man." His gaze settles on Harry, unaccusing and accepting. Harry stares back, suddenly remembering every good thing that Snape's ever done for him and struggling to find the hatred he's carried for so long.

"Heart-warming last words," Voldemort sneers, and Snape glances at him.

"Those weren't actually the last words I had in mind. I merely wanted to give you a warning."

"A warning," Voldemort repeats coldly.

"If you put him in the same room as Nott, expect a magical outburst far worse than what happened just now. Harry's magic has reacted violently around me and I only abandoned him. I would be surprised if Nott survived an encounter with him and as I just said, I don't want Harry to lose his godfather; I won't be impressed if Black dies because of a misunderstanding."

Voldemort just sneers, turning his attention back to Harry, who can't look at Snape. "Kill Severus."

"Where's my wand?"

"The Assistant has it, but you hardly need it."

"I want it," he says and lifts his hand. His wand appears and he snatches it out the air, curling his fingers around the handle and pointing it at Snape, but then hesitating.

"Kill him."

Harry swallows thickly.

"Just get it over with, kid," Sirius says quietly.

"Perhaps a little incentive is in order," Voldemort suggests.

"No! I'm doing it, I..."

Voldemort smiles, moving to stand behind Harry, his gaze on Snape as he bends and hisses in Harry's ear in Parseltongue, " _He was the one to tell me of the prophecy all those years ago._ "

Harry's eyes go wide, hand dropping slightly.

" _Had he not, I never would have tried to kill you, and your mother never would have died._ "

The torches flare, the walls and floor creak and groan threateningly, and Harry steps forward, thrusting his wand out, making a Wish, and snarling, " _Avada Kedavra!_ "

Green light hits Snape square in the chest and he falls limply to the floor with only a puff of exhaled breath.

_I can't believe you just did that._

* * *

The Assistant wakes with a moan, his body hurting all over. The bite on his arm throbs hotly, his breathing is strained, and his entire torso aches. He doesn't know how long he's slept, but he knows it's not long enough. Pain keeps him from slipping back into unconsciousness though, as do a gentle pair of hands tugging the butterfly strips from his face. He blinks his eyes open and blearily looks up at Yaxley then hisses as fingers probe the cut. Yaxley says nothing, but his hands leave the Assistant's face to curl around his arm and tug him to his feet. Once up, the Assistant staggers with him to the bedroom, lets himself be pushed onto the bed, and closes his eyes again as he lies. A murmured spell has his clothes vanishing, another makes him shiver as a Cleansing Spell brushes over his skin, then Yaxley sits beside him and curls a hand around the back of his neck, tugging him up into a half sitting position.

"Drink this."

He feels a vial against his lips and doesn't bother opening his eyes to see what it is, just swallows the liquid that spills into his mouth. A tingling warmth spreads through him as he lies back down, easing away the aches and pains, and he lets out a relieved sigh. Exhaustion presses in on him again as the pain fades and he's vaguely aware of Yaxley pulling off the rest of his bandages as darkness takes him.

* * *

The citizens and visitors of Hogsmeade are startled when, just after dawn, three people pop into the middle of the High Street, one dead, one unconscious, and one who falls into a seizure within moments of appearing.

"What happened?"

Harry sits on the end of a bed in Saint Mungo's, knees drawn up to his chest, arms wrapped around his legs. Sirius is sat at the head, laying against the pillows with his legs under the covers, while James sits in a chair beside the bed and Dumbledore stands nearby. He's still wanted by the Ministry, but the door to the room is locked and he reveals that he has ways of becoming invisible too, if not as wholly and effectively as Harry. Snape's been taken to the morgue.

"Voldemort tortured me," Sirius answers in a hollow voice, eyes red. They've seen Lupin. "He was trying to convince Harry to join the Death Eaters."

"Does your release mean you said yes?" Dumbledore asks Harry without accusation. By way of answer, Harry lifts his left sleeve to bare a clear, unmarked forearm. He doesn't look any of them in the eye.

"He gave up," Sirius says as Harry pulls his sleeve back down. Dumbledore raises a disbelieving eyebrow. "Voldemort realised it was getting him nowhere so he gave Harry a choice: he would let both of us go if Harry promised to never stand against him, or he'd kill us."

"He has to know Harry won't keep a promise like that," James says. "The Dark Lord killed Lily, now Snape too, and got Remus killed."

"And if Harry stands against him, I'll die as well. He put a Word of Death Curse on me."

_Dumbledore doesn't believe it._

Harry glances at him, then looks back down at his knees, closing his eyes and making a Wish. Dumbledore's eyes lose focus for a moment then fix on Harry.

"I'm sorry you've had to go through this, Harry. I'm sorry for what all of you have been through."

"Can it be broken?" James asks. "Can you get the curse off him?"

They all look at Dumbledore, but none of them quite dare to hope for a yes. They're not really surprised when he shakes his head sadly.

"I'm sorry. Word of Death Curses are absolute."

* * *

The Assistant wakes a second time to the smell of coffee and oranges. A glance at the clock tells him it's almost noon, but Yaxley's still in bed with him, sat against the headboard with his work files spread across the bed.

"You call in sick?"

"Said I was working from home for the day. There are privileges to being a trusted, hard-working Ministry employee."

"And you exploited them just for me? I'm touched."

Yaxley scowls. "Go and shower. I expect the Dark Lord will want you soon; I'm sure the boy finally cracked."

The Assistant sits up, but does so too quickly and his head spins and pain lances through his arm, making him fall back with a groan.

"Idiot," Yaxley mutters. The Assistant ignores him, looking to the clock again hoping maybe he read it wrong, but it still reads five to twelve.

He gets up again, slower but still urgent, conjuring clothes straight onto his body and snatching his cloak from the chair in the corner of the room.

"You need a shower," Yaxley says, watching him.

"Later. I'm going to the house."

Yaxley frowns. "Assistant, you will not interfere with the Dark Lord convincing Evans to join the ranks."

He turns to face him. "I know that. I've got no intentions of doing so, but it's been almost twelve hours since we caught Sirius. Harry must have agreed by now. I want to know about the initiation."

"The Dark Lord will call when it happens."

"Which I'd have expected him to have done by now. The Dark Lord said I could return in the morning, so I'm going."

At the Riddle House he's immediately called into the meeting room to see Voldemort. He goes in expecting to find Harry, Sirius, and Voldemort there, possibly Snape, Bellatrix, and Lucius as well, but the Dark Lord's alone. He bows and murmurs a greeting.

"Harry has joined my ranks."

The Assistant expected as much. "When's the initiation?"

"It's been done."

"Already?"

"I didn't need you, I saw no reason to call."

The Assistant's blood runs cold. "He's been sent home then?"

"You're correct."

"And Severus?"

"Severus is dead."

The Assistant's chest tightens and he struggles not to let his emotions show on his face. "You killed him? Already?"

"No. I had Harry kill him."

The Assistant's jaw drops. "He did it? He killed his own father?"

"Gladly so. Severus was a worse father than Death Eater. Harry disposed of him with remarkable malice."

For several moments the Assistant can find nothing to say, thoughts racing through his mind so quickly he can't keep track of any one of them, but eventually he croaks, "The body?"

"They took it. Harry wished to bury him."

The Assistant nods numbly. "Am I excused?"

"Do not betray me, Assistant," Voldemort says warningly. "I know you were as fond of Severus as you are of Harry, but you are not the only person with power working for me now. Turn on me, and I will use Harry against you."

"I will never betray you, my lord."

"Then you may leave."

* * *

Harry stands in the shower, staring at the Dark Mark on his arm. There's no scarring, no inflammation, nothing to suggest it hasn't been there his entire life.

It feels weird to be back home. Everything's the same, but it feels like it should be different, like something should have changed to reflect what happened. His entire world has turned itself inside out; shouldn't his home show that?

He dresses quickly after showering; he feels vulnerable without clothes, reminded too much of his time without them. Then he switches his eye for the magical one, climbs into bed and picks up Kiwi, hugging her to his chest and squeezing his eyes shut against the tears that well up as his mind drifts to Lupin. Sirius transformed into Padfoot the moment he got home, jumping onto the sofa to bury his nose under his paws and ignoring Harry and James. Harry couldn't bare to stay with them. In the hospital they said what happened wasn't his fault, but he doesn't believe it and he's pretty sure they don't either. He got James kidnapped, Lupin killed, and Sirius tortured and cursed.

"Harry?"

He jerks up, scrambling back until his back hits the wall and throwing out a hand as he lets off a blast of magic. The Assistant staggers but isn't knocked off his feet, and he raises his hands in a defensive gesture. Harry didn't even heard him Apparate in.

"I'm not here to hurt you."

Harry stares at him, breathing fast, Kiwi still clutched tightly in one arm. His magical eye swivels to look through the rest of the house, but James and Sirius are still in the living room. He puts up a Silencing Charm then asks, "Did he send you?"

"The Dark Lord? No."

"Why are you here?"

"Is it true about Severus?

Harry just nods.

"You kill- you killed him?"

Harry nods again. The Assistant turns away, burying his face in both hands. Harry watches, confused and afraid, but says nothing. The Assistant runs his hands up through his hair then drops them, turning to face Harry again but not meeting his gaze.

"Dumbledore and the Order know about you yet?"

"No one does. Voldemort modified Sirius' memory so he thinks I never said yes and thinks the Word of Death Curse is so that I won't ever stand against Voldemort."

Harry did some memory modification of his own, making Sirius forget about the voice. He doesn't want his godfather to know he's crazy.

"Dumbledore believes that?"

"I made him."

The Assistant nods numbly, turns to go, then turns back, going to Harry's desk and taking a Death Eater's mask and a thirteen inch long ebony wand from his pocket, laying them down. "Your father's. The mask will fit itself to you," he says quietly just before Disapparating.

That night Harry wakes with the memory of unwanted hands on his flesh and remembered pains, and smashes every window in the house. When his door crashes open to let Sirius in, Harry flinches violently and only at the last moment stops himself from throwing his godfather through the wall. Tears spill down his cheeks and he gasps, unable to breathe enough to properly cry, and when Sirius comes over to comfort him he draws away, shaking his head. Sirius transforms into Padfoot and when he noses at Harry, he flinches but doesn't pull away. He doesn't sleep again that night.

* * *

"Draco? Are you awake?"

Draco takes his eyes from the glass butterfly sat beside his bed and reluctantly gets out of bed, taking the dressing gown from the back of his door and pulling it on before opening it. Narcissa stands on the other side, fully dressed and holding a newspaper in her hands. She hold it out to him.

"You'll want to see this."

Draco takes it from her, unfolding it and looking at the front page, inhaling sharply as reads the headline:

_BOY WHO LIVED FOUND WITH DEAD HOGWARTS PROFESSOR_

He throws it down and rushes for his wardrobe, throwing off his dressing gown as he goes. "I'm going to see him."

"Draco, be sensible!"

"I'm going, Mother."

"Draco, you cannot turn up at the home of James Potter, especially not unannounced."

"I have to see him, I have to find out what happened, I have to know..."

"Draco... even if your father was involved... he likely doesn't know about your feelings for the boy."

"His name's Harry and this has got nothing to do with Father."

He comes out of his walk-in wardrobe, buttoning his robes and noticing the sceptical expression on Narcissa's face. "Mother..." he sighs. "We don't even know if the Dark Lord had anything to do with what happened to Harry. He's run off before, this could be same."

"And he just happens to return with the body of Severus Snape? Draco, you're not stupid."

"We don't know what happened to Professor Snape either. We don't know how he died. I'm going, Mother."

"And how exactly do you plan to get to Gloucestershire? You can't fly there!" she says sharply when Draco glances towards his broom.

"Then I'll take the Knight Bus."

Narcissa looks as if she'd prefer he flew.

* * *

Harry doesn't move when he hears a knock at the door, but he swivels his eye to look towards it, then leaps out of his bed when he sees a familiar blond standing nervously in front of the door. He scrambles down the stairs, reaching the bottom just as James opens the door, tearing around the sofa and pushing James aside to throw himself at Draco, flinging his arms around his neck and clinging to him.

"What are you doing here?"

"I saw in the papers... I had to come check on you."

Harry pulls away from the hug to look him in the face. "You came all the way here just to check on me?"

"You've been missing for over a week; of course I did."

"How did you even get here?"

"The Knight Bus. It was a terrible experience."

A growl draws their attention back into the house. Padfoot stands in the doorway, hackles raised, teeth bared. Draco looks at him nervously.

"I didn't know you had a dog."

"That's Padfoot."

"Hello, Padfoot."

Padfoot growls.

"I don't think he likes me."

Instead of answering, Harry glances at James, still holding the door open. "Can he come in?"

"Yeah."

Padfoot whines, looking up at him and not getting out of the way for Harry and Draco to come in.

"Padfoot, it's fine," James says. "He can come in."

Padfoot looks to Draco again, eyes very clearly distrustful even as he backs up a few steps so they can enter.

"Thank you," Draco says as they move inside. "I'm sorry for turning up unannounced. I, um, I know you probably don't want me here."

James closes the door behind them and reaches down to put a hand on Padfoot's neck. "You had nothing to do with what Lucius did. As long as you don't start turning into him, I've got no problem with you, but if you hurt Harry, I _will_ use one of the curses your dad taught me."

"James!"

James glances at Harry then back to Draco, who swallows and nods. "Yes, sir."

"Good. C'mon, Padfoot."

Padfoot growls at Draco once more before following James to the kitchen.

"He's scarier than I imagined," Draco says when the kitchen door has closed.

"He's never normally like that," Harry says, still frowning at the kitchen door.

"I probably shouldn't have shown up like this."

"Does your mother know you're here?"

"Yes. She didn't think I should come."

Harry slips his hand into Draco's and squeezes. "I'm glad you did."

* * *

"Why did you say he could come in?"

"He didn't know about me, Sirius. He didn't know that Lucius..."

"It doesn't matter what he knows. That boy is the child of the man who locked you up for fourteen years. The man who might have killed Remus!"

"Might have. We don't know who killed him."

"Lucius was there! That's all that matters! He was involved and we're just going to let his son into our home? Let him hang around _Harry?_ "

"We don't get to choose Harry's friends."

"More than friends, I'd reckon. It explains why he'd never tell us who his boyfriend was. I still don't think he should be here."

"Sirius, after everything that's happened, don't you think maybe he needs a friend right now?"

"He's got us."

"We're his... well, you're his godfather. It's not the same, you know that. All the shit that's happened—he needs his friends or he'll end up in the psych ward like I did."

"He's got other friends."

"Not ones that turned up on the doorstep because they read about him in the paper. I get it, Sirius, I do, but if Draco makes Harry happy we can't take that away from him."

"What about us? What about you? You're shaking, Prongs. If he makes you that uncomfortable—"

"He doesn't. That's not—I just... I shouldn't have threatened him like that. I don't know why I did."

"Because he's a Malfoy and you were well within your right to threaten him."

"He's just a kid. He's no older than Harry, and I just threatened to curse him with dark magic. Lucius never taught me anything good, you know."

Sirius watches James. He's bent over the sideboard, hands gripping the edge, head bowed. He rarely talks about Lucius to Sirius and when he does it's awkward and tense, like now. Sirius hadn't even known Lucius taught James anything.

"That's what Lucius has made me into," James says quietly. "Someone who'd use dark magic on a kid."

"James, you haven't. You wouldn't. You're not that person."

"Aren't I?"

"No," Sirius says firmly. "I know you. You're not that person."

James says nothing, but they both thinking the same thing—that Sirius doesn't really know him, that fourteen years can change a man even when he's not been imprisoned.


	61. Chapter 61

"Nice room."

"Not as big as yours."

"No, but it's nice. It's very you," Draco says with a smile, eying the heaving bookshelf opposite the desk, but the smile drops when he notices tears filling Harry's eyes. "What's wrong? Why are you—don't cry. I'm sorry, I didn't..." he trails off, not sure of what to say. Harry shakes his head and sucks in a shaky breath.

"It's not your fault. I just..." Tears spill down his cheeks and he rubs at them angrily. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to—" he breaks off, choking on a sob. Draco pulls him into a hug and he cracks, leaning into him and giving into the tears.

"Can I do anything?" Draco asks helplessly when the sobs start to ease. Harry shakes his head, pulling back so he can wipe at his eyes.

"Is this... is it about what happened? While you were missing?"

He nods, not meeting his gaze.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Harry squeezes his eyes shut against more tears.

"It's okay if you don't," Draco says quickly. "I won't push it. Just... if you do, I'll listen. Let's sit down."

He pulls Harry over to the bed, sitting on the edge and tugging him down beside him, but Harry sits on it proper, back to the headboard and legs crossed. Draco shifts to mirror him, almost squishing Kiwi in the process. He starts to move her out the way but Harry holds out a hand and Draco passes her over, watching him carefully set her in the corner of the bed.

"He got a name?"

"She. Kiwi."

"Doesn't look like a kiwi."

Harry shrugs. "I was four."

Draco nods understandingly. "I had a stuffed dragon when I was a kid. I called him dragon."

Harry lets out a small huff of laughter but it ends up as another sob and he covers his face with both hands. "Sorry."

"Not your fault."

Harry presses the balls of his hands into his eyes, holding his breath to try and suppress the sobs that threaten him. Draco watching him, wishing he could do something to help.

"It was Voldemort."

Draco inhales sharply, half at the name and half because he didn't expect Harry to talk about it. His hands are still pressed to his eyes and his voice is quiet enough Draco can probably pretend he didn't hear. Harry breathes in deeply, lets it out shakily, and lowers his hands, but keeps his gaze on the bed.

"After the History of Magic exam, I got back to the Three Broomsticks and there were two Death Eaters there. They took us, me and James, to..."

_Are you really going to tell him?_

"To the Dark Lord," Draco finishes.

Harry nods, still not looking up. "You know that card I got back in January, the one saying there was a place among his ranks for me? He sent more," he continues when Draco nods. "He's been trying to convince me all year and he got bored or tired of waiting so he... he..."

Draco's stomach is in knots and he thinks he might be sick as he asks, "He tortured you?"

Harry squeezes his eyes shut and nods.

* * *

James heads upstairs when five minutes pass after Sirius says he's just going to check on the boys, an uncomfortable knot in his stomach. It's been barely a day since Sirius and Harry came back and he hates not knowing exactly where they are now, an uncontrollable fear welling up every time they leave his sight for too long.

But he finds Padfoot right outside Harry's bedroom door, belly pressed to the floor, head cocked slightly towards the small gap under the door.

"Sirius."

Padfoot's only response is to whine softly, eyes lifting to look sadly at James.

"You shouldn't be eavesdropping, Sirius," he says but there's no admonishment in his tone.

Padfoot whines again then transforms, but stays knelt on the floor. "Think he heard you, put up a Silencing Charm."

James says nothing.

"He's telling him what happened."

"That's... good. Talking's good," he says when Sirius glances at him. "Sam says so."

Sirius gets to his feet, shoving his hands in his pockets, eyes drifting over to his own bedroom door. "Remus would say so, too."

Sirius didn't sleep there the night before in the hours before Harry's screams woke him. He can't even stand to go in it. It's been cleaned, but he won't so much as open the door. He spent the night in James' room, curling up as Padfoot with James as Prongs. Neither of them slept much.

* * *

Draco's hand shakes slightly as he reaches out and brushes his fingers against the Mark on Harry's arm and Harry tenses when he does. He still hasn't looked at him. He's told Draco everything, the words spilling out of him uncontrollably, everything from the kidnapping to his return a day ago and the full extent of his powers, though not all the details of what happened while he was gone. The only things he hasn't mentioned are the voice in his head, Snape's relationship to him, and how he'd been the one tasked with killing the man. Even as he speaks he's terrified of how Draco will react, that it will horrify him, drive him away, but Draco sits silently listening to every word. Now Harry's the silent one, waiting for his reaction, for the voice in his head to be proven right when Draco says that he can't be around someone who's weak enough to give into the demands of a homicidal mad man.

"Harry..."

He draws his arm back, pushing his sleeve down and turning his head away, bracing himself.

"Harry, I... I need to know... my father, did he..."

"Draco—"

"Please, don't lie to me. I know what my father is, just... I have to know if he..."

Harry hesitantly meets his gaze, seeing the barest hint of desperation in Draco's grey eyes. "He was one of the ones who took me, but he never hurt me."

"He was just responsible for giving you to the ones who did."

"Draco, I... he didn't, not really. He took James, but it was someone else that grabbed me."

Draco shakes his head. "But he was there. He was involved."

"He's a Death Eater. He did as he was told."

Draco's gaze flicks to Harry's arm. "Will you?"

"I have to. He cursed Sirius, if I don't... I can't lose him, Draco."

"Can I kiss you?"

Harry's breath catches and he has to look away. Draco reaches out but Harry flinches at his touch.

"I don't care, Harry. My father's a Death Eater, I can handle it."

"That's not... fuck," he whispers, closing his eyes. He's sick of crying, but tears are threatening him again.

_You're actually so pathetic even I'm starting to feel sorry for you._

"Shut up."

"I didn't say anything."

"Sorry, I wasn't... Draco, I still—there's other things I haven't told you."

"Then tell me." He reaches for Harry again, cupping his cheek and gently turning his head until Harry looks at him. "You know I'll keep your secrets. Tell me so I can do something for you. Let me help you."

"You can't do anything about it, Draco."

"I can be here."

"I don't want you to hate me."

"I won't hate you. _I won't_ ," he says firmly when Harry looks sceptical, brushing his thumb over Harry's cheek.

"I just... hearing all this, doesn't it... I mean... it's a lot to take in, everything I've told you already."

"I can handle it."

_You're not—you are going to tell him. Merlin, you might as well take out an ad in the paper. Whole bloody world will know about me at this rate._

Harry lifts his hand to Draco's, pulling it down and holding it between his own.

"I have a voice," he says, eyes fixed on their hands. "In my head. That's who I told to shut up just a second ago."

There's a pause, then Draco asks, "You don't mean the kind of voice that most people have, that tells them when they're doing something stupid, do you? You mean the kind that tells people to do crazy things."

"It doesn't do that. It's not like it tells me to kill people."

_I've suggested it._

"What does it tell you?"

Harry shrugs. "Stuff. It just sort of comments on my life, insults me when it thinks I'm being stupid. It's kind of harsh most of the time, but sometimes it's helpful."

"Have you always heard it?"

He shakes his head. "In third year, Professor Moody used the Imperius Curse on us. It started then."

"What did it say that made you tell it to shut up?"

"It called me pathetic for crying so much. It's fine," he adds when Draco gets an offended look on his face. "It doesn't matter. It says stuff like that all the time. I've gotten used to it."

"That's..."

"I'm not crazy."

"You've got a voice in your head that insults you."

Harry drops Draco's hand, clenching his jaw and looking away.

"Harry, it's not your fault," Draco tells him, taking his hand again. "You already had brain damage; the Imperius probably reacted badly to it. A healer might even be able to fix it, make the voice go away."

"They won't. They can't do anything about the damage to my brain; they told me that before. They can't even cure my epilepsy, why would they be able to fix this?"

"You can at least ask."

Harry shakes his head. "It doesn't matter, Draco. I can deal with it."

"Alright," he says reluctantly, then clears his throat and his next question is forcibly off-handed. "Does it, uh... does it say stuff about me?"

Harry hesitates, but nods.

"Like what?"

"It doesn't matter."

"Tell me."

"It doesn't really like you," he admits reluctantly. "It disapproves of romance and relationships in general because it thinks the time could be better spent studying or something."

"Studying?" Draco repeats dryly. "Like you don't spend enough time with your nose in a book. It's not satisfied with you taking your OWLs a year early?"

* * *

"We still need to talk to him about wiping your memory."

Sirius shakes his head. "There's no point. That last card probably threatened us and he destroyed it because he didn't want to worry us or something stupid like that. It's over now."

"If that is what it said and he'd told us, we could have stopped all this from happening."

"Could we? Voldemort seemed pretty determined to get to him. It probably would have happened no matter what."

* * *

"There's something else, isn't there?" Draco says. "Why did you flinch when I asked to kiss you?"

Harry pulls his hand out of Draco's grip so he won't have to feel Draco let go of him, and draws his knees up to his chest, wrapping his arms around his legs and pressing his forehead to his knees. He swallows thickly.

"Harry?"

"They didn't just torture me," he says and his voice shakes. He hugs himself tighter, gripping hard enough his nails dig into his skin through his clothes. He doesn't want to say it, but Draco deserves to know. It'll end their relationship, he knows, but he can't bare to carry on with Draco when he's been dirtied and Draco had a right to know why they can't be together, that it's not because Harry doesn't like him any more, it's just that he isn't worthy of him.

"One of the Death Eaters, he ra-" he chokes on the word, but forces himself to say it, voice little more than a hoarse whisper. "He raped me."

There's a sharp inhale and Harry digs his nails in harder, waiting to feel the bed shift, to hear footsteps and Draco's disgusted voice saying he's leaving and never wants to see him again, never wants to touch him again.

"Shit," Draco breathes. "Merlin, I... I don't know what... do you... fuck."

It's not what Harry expects and he cautiously swivels his magic eyes to look at Draco, checking his expression and then looking away again when he sees the disgust he expects mingled in with shock and anger.

"You can use the floo," he mutters.

"What?"

"To go home, so you don't have to ride the Knight Bus again."

There's a pause then, "You want me to leave?"

Harry lifts his head to glare at him, drawing on the anger that's mostly buried under all the hurt and loss and humiliation and fear he's feeling. "I don't want you to sit there and look at me with disgust on your face."

"What? I'm not disgust-"

"Don't lie to me," he snaps. "I can see it. It's fine, okay? I get it. You think I'm not disgusted too? I can still feel him all over me, I can still—but I'm not going to sit here and let you look at me like that. So just go."

"Harry, I'm not disgusted by you," he insists, reaching a hand towards him, but Harry jerks away, backing up until he hits the headboard. "Harry, please. I'm not disgusted by you. I'm disgusted that someone would do this to you."

Harry stares at him, trying to figure out if he means it, but Draco's expression is honest, apologetic.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean for you to think it was directed at you, because I swear, it's not. Can I... I want to hug you, alright? Can I do that?"

Harry hesitates, eyes scanning his face again, but nods. He tenses when Draco's hand touches his arm, but doesn't pull away as Draco shifts to sit beside him, putting his left arm around his shoulders and the other around Harry's knees, still drawn up to his chest. For a moment Harry just sits stiffly, but when Draco starts to pull away, Harry reaches across to grab his robe, leaning into him and lowering his legs so Draco can put his right arm across his body instead. Harry presses his face to Draco's shoulders, feeling selfish and ashamed for it, but too glad to have Draco holding him to overcome the selfishness and ask whether Draco is really sure he doesn't want to walk out.

* * *

"Do you think they're still talking?"

Sirius catches the small ball James tosses at him then throws it back. They sit opposite each other on the hallway floor, far enough from Harry's door that it wouldn't be considered eavesdropping even if he hadn't put Silencing Charms up.

"Maybe."

James throws the ball to him again. "You think they're doing something else?"

Sirius shrugs, tossing the ball between both hands. "They're teenagers."

"You think they're fucking? Harry was getting tortured two days ago. You think he's up to that right now?"

"It'd be one way to forget about it all," he says, tossing the ball in a high arc toward James. "There are worse ways he could deal with all the shit that's happened."

"You don't approve of them even being friends but you don't mind suggesting that?"

"You're the one who said Malfoy's good for him."

"I said a friend is good for him. Or boyfriend, I guess. If they are."

Sirius catches the ball as James throws it to him, turning it between his fingers and looking down the hall to Harry's door. "I just want him to be alright."

* * *

"I should probably go."

Harry clutches at Draco's robe. He doesn't want him to leave; he's terrified that the moment Draco does, he'll realise the reality of what happened to him and realise he doesn't want to see Harry again.

"I don't want you to," he says without looking up.

"My mother is probably going to worry James and Sirius have killed me if I'm gone too long, and James would probably be glad for me to go."

" _I'm_ not."

"I know," Draco says, tucking a finger under Harry's chin and lifting his head to look at him. "If they say it's alright, I'll visit again, with prior notice next time. Or you can come visit the manor. Mother won't mind."

Harry nods reluctantly then kisses his cheek, just quickly. Draco gives a small smile.

"Can I kiss your mouth?"

Harry's surprised, because saying he's not disgusted by him is one thing but he still expects Draco not to want anything intimate with him. He nods, hand clenching in Draco's robe, and doesn't truly believe Draco will do it until his lips touch Harry's own. Harry sighs, hand loosening, and kisses him harder, closing his eyes and letting himself forget, for a fleeting moment, all the pain and loss and fear that he's feeling. He focuses entirely on the feel of Draco's mouth against his, on his familiar smell, on the warmth of his body, the feel of his hand on his cheek.

They part reluctantly and when they leave the room Draco's surprised and a little wary to see Sirius and James get up from the hallway floor, but Harry just watches them, holding Draco's hand in his own.

"Hello, Mr Black," Draco greets politely, though a little nervously. Sirius' gaze narrows and he passes the ball between both hands as he approaches them. He looks them over critically, eyes lingering on their joined hands, and Draco resists the urge to fidget.

"He's the boyfriend you wouldn't tell us about then?" Sirius says to Harry, who nods, and Sirius looks to Draco.

"Let's get one thing straight," he says, and Harry sighs.

"Sirius—"

"No. This is my godfatherly duty and the hell if I'm not sticking to it, so listen carefully, Draco. I don't trust you. You come from bad blood—I should know because I'm related to you—and your father's a fucking bastard, but Harry clearly likes you so I'm going to give you a chance, but if you mess up, if you hurt him, I will make you regret you were ever born. He's been through enough shit in his life; I'm not going to let Lucius Malfoy's brat cause him any more. Is that clear?"

Draco nods jerkily. "I've got no intention of doing anything to hurt him."

"Make sure that you don't. I might have hated my family but that doesn't mean I didn't pick up a few things, and you can ask your mother what kind of things those might be."

"Are you done?" Harry asks snappily.

"Yeah, I think so."

Harry tugs Draco around, leading him downstairs. "I'm sorry about that."

"It's fine," Draco replies quietly. "I mean, he's terrifying, but like he said, it's his godfatherly duty."

"It was out of line. He had no right to say those things."

"My father kidnapped and imprisoned his best friend and helped do the same to you. He's one of the few people who does have the right to say those things."

"Yeah, but you're not your father."

"There're people that would argue with that," Draco says softly. They've reached the fireplace and Harry turns to face him, eyebrows drawn down unhappily.

"Do you?"

"I spent most of my life trying to emulate him. He's my father; I looked up to him. I still do, in some ways—I don't approve of what he's done," he says quickly. "I don't agree with kidnapping and torture and... but he's still..."

"He's still your dad."

Draco nods. Harry leans forward and kisses him quickly. "You should go before I start begging you to stay."

When he's gone, Harry turns to the stairs, glaring at Sirius as he comes down. "You had no right to do that."

"I had every right, Harry."

"Kids aren't miniature replicas of their parents, Sirius. Draco isn't Lucius anymore than I'm Snape."

"You weren't raised by Snape."

"No," he snaps, "I was raised by people a lot worse than Snape, so if you're suggesting I'm like _them_ instead—"

"Merlin, kid, _no_ ," Sirius says, horrified. "I'd never suggest that, no one would. But you're not Draco. It's different. You hate the Dursleys; Draco doesn't hate his father."

"Maybe not, but that doesn't mean he's going to turn into him. You don't know Draco, you don't get to judge him."

"That doesn't mean I have to trust him, Harry. I'm giving him a chance; what I said upstairs, that was just a warning. You've been through enough shit in the past two weeks alone that I couldn't do anything about. But him? Him I can protect you from."

"I don't need protecting from him."

"When he proves himself, then I'll believe that."

Harry shakes his head, stalking past him and angrily stomping up the stairs, passing James and slamming his door shut when he reaches his bedroom.

"You look... not distressed," James says to Sirius. "Shouldn't you be distressed after arguing with your godson?"

"I'm just sort of relieved."

"Why?"

"Because what just happened, that was normal. I mean, that kind of thing is supposed to happen between teenagers and their guardians, right? Disapproving parental figures, resentful kids, arguments where they don't agree and end in slammed doors. Everything with Harry can get so surreal sometimes, it's a relief to have something normal."

* * *

_You're crying again._

"Really? I never noticed. Thanks _so much_ for pointing that out," Harry snaps. "Can't you just leave me alone?"

Silence answers him and he throws himself onto his bed, pressing his face to the pillow and squeezing his eyes shut. He's terrified that he's just seen Draco for the last time, that Draco will realise he doesn't actually want to date someone who was raped, and he's angry at himself for arguing with Sirius. Sirius is right, after all; he has no particular reason to trust Draco, he doesn't know him like Harry does. He's just trying to be protective, to be the guardian Harry always wanted as a kid, and now Harry's being an ungrateful brat about it. It's only made worse by the fact that less than two days ago Sirius was being brutally tortured and it's entirely Harry's fault.

He jerks his head up when he feels something nudge against his head, then blinks uncomprehendingly at Kiwi. He could swear she was on the far side of the bed a moment ago.

_Cheer up._

"Are... are you making her move?"

_Why so surprised? I've used your magic before. It's my magic too._

"Yeah, but... you vanished for several weeks afterwards. And when did you ever care for me to cheer up?"

_That was the Assistant's fault and I have to share your head. I don't want you to be miserable._

Harry rolls over and hugs Kiwi to his chest, wiping at the tears on his face and sighing. "I don't want to be miserable either, but it's kind of hard."

_Get angry_ , the voice advises. _We might not be able to be cheerful, but we can be angry and that beats being miserable._

He wishes it were that easy.


	62. Chapter 62

Lupin's funeral is two days after Draco's visit. Harry cries through the whole thing, choking back sobs in an attempt to keep quiet. James cries silently. Sirius' eyes remain dry until everyone else has left and it's just the three of them, then he breaks down, falling to his hands and knees in front of the grave, body heaving with huge, gut-wrenching sobs. Harry turns away, pressing his face to James' chest and clinging to him, a fresh wave of tears spilling down his own cheeks as he listens to Sirius wail.

Snape's is the day after and there's considerably fewer people in attendance—just Harry, Sirius, James, McGonagall, and Dumbledore, who turns up to both funerals despite still hiding from the Ministry. Harry doesn't cry.

The Assistant watches the funeral from a small distance. He doesn't move when the others have left, staying by the tree to watch the grave diggers fill the hole after everyone's left. Only when they're done does the Assistant move, approaching the fresh grave and falling to his knees in front of it.

"I'm sorry, Severus. I didn't want this to happen. Especially—" his voice cracks. He inhales shakily. "It's stupid. I know it's stupid. Barely even knew you as you are and a couple more years and everything will start over. You'll be alive again, Harry won't have killed you. Maybe I'll be good next time. Might even tell you who I am. Maybe Lily too. Never know, I might be able to get the two of you to raise the kid together. I'll stick around and be an uncle..."

He trails off, rubbing his hands over his face then through his hair, and sits for a little while. The gravestone is simple grey with only Snape's name, date of birth, and date of death on it. Eventually he reaches over, laying a hand against the stone for a moment before getting to his feet, turning, and walking away.

* * *

Harry freezes in his bedroom doorway when he gets back from the bathroom, then glances around the house, checking James is still in the living room with Sirius as he quickly moves into the room, shutting the door behind him and putting up Silencing Charms. He keeps his magical eye on Sirius and James and looks at the Assistant with his normal one. He sits on the edge of Harry's bed, body tense and his hands trembling.

"Is this his idea of a sense of humour, sending for me _now_? I just buried my father this morning."

"If he wanted you, he wouldn't send me. You've got a Mark on your arm; it's not there just to look pretty."

"Then why are you here?"

"I need your help with something."

"Why should I help you?"

"You shouldn't, but I'd really appreciate it if you did because there's no one else that can."

"Help you with what?"

"I need you to make a person do something for me."

"So do it yourself."

"I can't. I can't use magic against this man, at all."

"Why not?"

The Assistant rubs his trembling hands over his face. Harry notices bandages wrapped around his left arm and gestures to it.

"What happened?"

The Assistant glances at it. "Will you help me?"

"Was it Remus? It was, wasn't it? Remus attacked you."

"I didn't kill him."

"Why should I believe that?"

"Because I was too busy bleeding all over the floor to do anything. Bellatrix killed him, not me. I never intended anyone to get hurt that night."

Harry shakes his head. "Fuck you. The only reason you're not dead right now is because _he_ said I can't take revenge for what happened and I'm not risking Sirius' life for _you_. But I'm not helping you do anything."

The Assistant sighs. "Yes," he says. "You will."

* * *

Yaxley frowns with worry when he comes home to find the Assistant crumpled on the floor, trembling from head to foot, his fists clenched, back arched, face pressed to the floor, eyes squeezed shut even as tears drip down his cheeks, and jaw clenched tight but unable to keep him from whimpering pitifully. Yaxley shuts the door and approaches him, but before he gets more then a few feet from the door, a bodiless, toneless voice says from behind the Assistant, "Retract every order you've ever given the Assistant."

Yaxley's eyes glaze over. "I retract every order I've ever given you," he says, his voice as toneless as the invisible Harry's, and the Assistant slumps, letting out relieved cry. Yaxley crumples to the floor, unconscious, but the Assistant doesn't get up. He stays sprawled on the floor a while, breathing hard and waiting for the tremors to stop. When they finally do, he stands, moving around the armchair to wrap a hand around Harry's arm and Disapparate.

* * *

Harry stands in his bedroom, disorientated at realising he's no idea what happened in the past twenty minutes.

* * *

The Assistant goes back to Yaxley's apartment, hauling the unconscious man off the floor and over his shoulder, wincing as the movement pulls at his injury, then shrouds them both in invisibility and Disapparates again.

Some fifteen minutes later he's standing in the Chamber of Secrets and he dumps Yaxley on the floor to look around. The basilisk is still there, just a few pieces of dead flesh hanging from it's skeleton now, but otherwise the chamber's mostly unremarkable, no different from every other time he's visited it. He waves a hand and the basilisk crumbles to dust, then he turns to Yaxley, bending down and taking the wand from his inside robe pocket. He touches two fingers to the man's throat, then straightens up and steps back, waving his hand in a circular motion. Bars spring up out of the floor to create a large cell around Yaxley, each side about fifteen feet long and reaching up fifteen feet to a two inch thick metal sheet that creates a roof. He furnishes it with a single sized bed, which he levitates the man onto, a simple table with a chair, and a wardrobe. He creates a toilet in one corner, including a curtain to separate it from the rest of the 'room', and puts a shower and sink opposite it, hooking them all up to the school's piping. He considers it, thinking for a moment, then gives a satisfied nod and turns away.

* * *

The security guards of an unremarkable London branch of the HSBC Bank are baffled when, after being inexplicably knocked out for several hours, they check the security cameras and find they've apparently been robbed of a hundred thousand pounds by none other than Queen Victoria, who somehow manages to open the vaults simply by touching her hand to the door. No one's impressed when the oldest guard, both in age and terms of employment, says at the end of the tapes, "We are not amused."

* * *

Narcissa's relaxing with a book and a glass of wine when Dobby pops into the room and tells her the Assistant is at the front gate seeking an audience with her. She debates having Dobby send him away, but she finds herself curious about the man she's only heard of in the papers and through gossip from other Death Eaters' wives. More than that, though, she wants to meet the man who got her ex-husband thrown in prison.

She goes to greet him in the lobby—she knows better than to invite strange men further into her house, and knows better still than to invite Death Eaters further into her house—and finds herself looking at an unremarkable man in his thirties with fluffy blond hair and blue eyes. He greets her with a warm smile and when she holds out her hand to shake, he instead bends and kisses her knuckles. She's surprised and impressed, but doesn't show it.

"A pleasure to meet you, Ms Black."

Her opinion of him rises another notch. Many people make the mistake of addressing her as Mrs Malfoy still—a mistake they only ever make once.

"The infamous Assistant," she says be way of greeting. "Should I call the Aurors?"

"You certainly may, if you feel threatened, but I'd appreciate getting business out of the way first. It'd be a shame to waste the trip."

"What business would that be? My house elf never said."

"It's about him, actually. I was hoping to buy him from you."

Narcissa raises one perfect eyebrow. "My house elf is not for sale."

"I'd be willing to pay a substantial price and provide a replacement. I already have one ready—young, able, extremely eager to please."

"Dobby has served me since my wedding, Mr Assistant. I'm not willing to part with him."

"Just Assistant will do, Ms Black, and I understand your position but... I didn't particularly want to mention it, given the impropriety of doing so... however, Dobby is, ah... eccentric, is he not? Surely you'd rather a less... odd... house elf?"

"I don't think you have a right to comment on my house elf's state of mind. I think you should leave."

"My apologies," he says sincerely. "It was out of place, but true. If I might also say one more thing before you make a final decision—would you be so eager to keep him if I made you aware that he knew about James Potter ever since Lucius brought him here?"

A heavy silence fills the foyer after that. Narcissa stares at the Assistant, her face carefully blank of any emotion, but her eyes are cold and hard.

"And how long did you know," she says coldly, "before you had Aurors invade my home?"

"A good long time. Would you prefer I had them storm your home sooner?"

"I would have preferred they not storm my home at all!" she says harshly, then catches herself, inhaling deeply and letting it out slowly. "Dobby!"

There's a crack, then, "You called, Mistress?"

"Did you know about James Potter before Lucius was arrested?"

Dobby cowers. "Master is telling Dobby not to tells anyone, even Mistress, and Master Draco!" he cries, but Narcissa stops listening after the first word, looking back at the Assistant.

"I want to see the replacement."

"Of course. Pippin!"

There's a gentle pop and another house elf appears, wearing a tea towel that's been fashioned into a dress of sorts.

"Yes, Master Assistant?"

"Let Ms Black here take a look at you."

Pippin stands still as Narcissa inspects her. She's a little smaller than Dobby, but with bigger ears and a gleam of eagerness in her eyes that Dobby doesn't have.

"She's in good health?"

"Perfect. And young, like I said. I would expect her to live to serve your great-great-great-grandchildren."

"How much are you offering with her?"

"A hundred galleons."

Narcissa can't help the look of surprise at that. It's enough to buy a brand new house elf.

"Why are you so eager for Dobby?" she asks him.

"We met once before. I liked the little guy, and it seemed you should have an elf whose loyalty is directly to you and not in any way to your ex-husband."

"Dobby is not remembering meeting you, sir," Dobby says some ten minutes later when money and elves have exchanged hands.

"I might have lied a little bit. Don't tell anyone."

"Yes, Master Assistant, sir. We is going to your home?"

"Eh... sort of."

They go to Yaxley's apartment. Dobby looks around, familiarising himself with the place, but the Assistant goes to the sofa and sits down.

"Have a seat, Dobby."

Dobby bursts into tears.

When Dobby's finished crying and stuttering gratitudes and praises at the Assistant for being so kind as to treat a house elf as an equal, he eventually climbs up onto the sofa, feet dangling off the end as he looks up at the Assistant.

"Alright, Dobby, I've got an offer for you. Hear me out before you say anything, alright? You need to hear it all before you decide."

Dobby nods, ears waggling with the motion.

"I'm willing to set you free and then pay you to work for me, but the work I'm going to ask you to do is a little bit odd and requires secrecy. The same level of secrecy you gave Lucius about James Potter. I can't have you telling anyone or I'm going to be in some serious trouble with a lot of people. What do you say?"

"Master would set Dobby free?"

"Then hire you, yeah."

Dobby bursts into tears again. The Assistant sighs.

* * *

Yaxley's awake when the Assistant returns to the Chamber of Secrets with Dobby and several suitcases worth of clothes. He's pacing the cell, but he stops when he notices them, coming up to the bars and grabbing them with both hands, pressing his face against them and yelling at the Assistant—but no noise comes from his mouth.

"Dobby, meet Preston Yaxley, the man you'll be looking after for the foreseeable future."

"Dobby is glad to meets you, Master Preston."

Yaxley glares at him like he'd like nothing more than to kick him then he raises his gaze to the Assistant, mouth forming the words, "Let me out!" but the Assistant's gaze is on Dobby.

"As you can see, he's mute. He can relay his wants and needs to you through writing," he says, waving his hand at the table as a pile of parchment, a bottle of ink, and a quill appear. Yaxley immediately goes to it, taking the quill, dipping it in the ink and furiously writing on a piece of parchment. The Assistant turns away as he holds it up.

"Dobby, can you read that out for me, please."

"'Let me out'."

"Yeah, I thought as much. This is extremely important: Don't ever let me see anything he's written. Written orders are less powerful but they're enough to hit me. If he's written something that you think I need to see, tell me it or, if you really have to, re-write it yourself and give it to me, understand?"

"Dobby understands, sir."

"Good. You've got the rest of your orders, but if you're ever unsure of anything, come find me. Like I said earlier, keeping him restrained but alive is of utmost importance, but that doesn't mean he shouldn't be comfortable. Welcome to the Chamber of Secrets, Preston," he says without looking around, walking away and lifting his hand in a wave. "I hope you enjoy your stay."

* * *

Harry gets a desperate letter from Hermione demanding to know if he's alright and how much of what the papers reported is true. He gets similar, but less frenzied, letters from Neville, Cid, and Tyler. He responds with brief letters of his own, saying curtly that the papers have it mostly right—they speculated that he was kidnapped and held hostage by the Azkaban escapees before managing to escape—and he doesn't want to talk about it. He can barely stand to think about it. He reads, not even caring that he's reading books he's already read before, because he has to do anything to keep from thinking about what happened. Of course, that doesn't stop the nightmares.

Harry's not surprised when a lawyer turns up at the house to execute Snape's will the Monday after his funeral; Dumbledore already told him Snape left everything to him. They sit in the dining room and Harry listens as the woman tells Harry that he's now the owner of the house on Spinner's End and a Gringotts vault with a small amount of savings in it.

He goes with Sirius and James to Diagon Alley, but visits Gringotts alone. He closes Snape's vault and withdraws everything from it, keeping it in a separate money bag that he charms silent before pocketing so as not to draw attention by the clinking of coins.

There are stares and whispers in the street, but Harry keeps his head down and Wishes for them to be ignored. None of them want the attention.

He goes into Weasley Wizard Wheezes while they're there. George sent a letter while Harry was kidnapped, saying that the blue Pygmy Puff is ready for him. The store's much busier than the last time Harry was there, with Hogwarts aged students able to visit now, but he's thankful to see no one he recognises as he pushes through the crowd to the pay desk. A young witch with spiky blonde hair and a name badge that reads 'Verity' is at the till, but George talks nearby to a couple of customers and Harry waits for him to finish before approaching.

"Looks like business is going well."

"Hey. Yeah, we're doing well. You here for the Pygmy Puffs?"

Harry nods, and George puts a hand on his shoulder.

"Come through here," he says, guiding him to the back and through a curtain into a room with far fewer people in, but they pass through that to a door and into a small, messy office, where Fred sits behind a desk, a scowl on his face as he scribbles at a bit of parchment, but he gives a smile when he sees Harry.

"Alright, Evans?"

"Yeah," he lies. "You?"

"Regretting the business venture," he says, gesturing to the sheaves of parchment on the desk. "It's not all fun and games as it turns out. But you must be here for these guys," he says, pulling open a drawer, reaching in and pulling out two round, squeaking fluffy balls, one a bright red, the other Ravenclaw blue. "There you go," Fred says, giving them a poke towards the edge of the desk.

Harry bends down and reaches towards them, watching them roll up to his hand and nibble at his fingers. It tickles and he can't help smiling just a little.

"How much?"

"No charge," George tells him. "You gave us our start up loan," he says when Harry looks at him. "We never would have done all this without that, so you can take what you like, no charge. Told you that last time."

"Yeah, but I thought that was just the first time. And these were custom ordered so to speak."

 _Don't argue with free stuff, moron_.

Fred waves a dismissive hand. "They're selling like crazy so we expanded the range of colours. These are just the first two of their variation; we set them aside for you. Besides, we read the papers. It sounds like you could use something nice after what happened."

Harry hears the unspoken question but doesn't answer it. He scoops up the Pygmy Puffs and they roll in his hands, squeaking happily.

"Thank you," he says, and the twins realise they're not going to get anything out of him.

He leaves with the two Pygmy Puffs in a cage after George assures him they're both girls and won't surprise him with any babies and finds Sirius and James waiting just outside the door for him. James is crouched down, one arm across his knees, the other hand tangled in his hair, fingers tapping restlessly, and he looks relieved to see Harry again.

* * *

"I need to go out," Harry says that night.

Prongs lift his head and Padfoot transforms into Sirius, frowning at Harry. They've been spending a lot of time in their animal forms since Lupin died. Harry wishes he could do the same; he gets the impression they think less as animals and he'd give anything to be able to quiet his mind.

"I'll be careful, I promise, but I just... I have to go. I'll be back in a few hours."

"Harry—"

"If you say no, I'll go anyway," he says. "I'm only telling you so you don't think I've been kidnapped or run off, but I'm going."

"Harry, it's late and there's a dark wizard running around. You can't just go wandering off; it's not safe."

"I'm perfectly safe. Voldemort's done with us, remember?"

"That doesn't mean the Death Eaters won't—"

"He wouldn't spare me then set his Death Eaters on me," Harry interrupts. "He's not a threat to me any more as long as I don't threaten him, which I won't because I'm not losing you. I'm going," he says, and Disapparates before they can argue further.

He reappears at Spinner's End. The house hasn't changed since he was there four years ago—still dark, small, and full of books.

He puts up protection spells, everything he can think of to protect the house except anti-Apparition, even Wishing for no one who isn't related to him by blood to be able to get into the house. He disconnects the fireplace from the floo network—he Wishes it, anyway, and he's confident enough in his magic now to not doubt it's done—and when he's satisfied, he makes himself invisible, leaves the house on foot and walks for ten minutes until he reaches the small church and it's graveyard.

Snape's grave is still the freshest there. Harry looks around once more, checking there's no one nearby then Wishing that anyone who walks past in the next half an hour won't notice the graveyard, just pass by with only a fleeting recognition that it's there. Then he crouches by the grave, makes a Wish, and the dirt comes flying out.

He levitates the coffin out of the ground, puts it aside, and transfigures a small pebble into an exact duplicate. He takes his old wand and Snape's Death Eater mask from his pocket and puts them inside the transfigured coffin before placing it in the grave and Wishing the dirt back into it, making sure it looks undisturbed before getting to his feet, making the coffin invisible and leaving the graveyard with it floating along behind him.

Back in Spinner's End he pushes the furniture aside to make room for the coffin on the floor and kneels beside it. He hesitates as he lays his hands on the wood then slowly opens it. Snape lays inside, dressed in his best robes, arms crossed over his chest, wand tucked under his hands. The undertaker was a witch and Snape's been preserved with magic, using none of the chemicals of Muggle embalming methods. Harry insisted on it and no one had argued with him.

He dispels the preservation charms and moves Snape's arms. He unbuttons the robe and the shirt underneath and presses his palm flat against Snape's chest, directly over his heart.

_Do you realise how insane this is? Do you realise the danger you've put us in?_

"Shut up."

He closes his eyes, focusing, dredging up every memory he has of Snape, good and bad—seeing him for the first time in a potions lesson, when Harry's invisible and nobody knows he's there; getting picked up from the Dursleys and going shopping in Diagon Alley; numerous hospital visits with Snape scowling unhappily as they sit in waiting rooms; waking up in the Chamber of Secrets to find Snape bent over him; finding out Snape is his mysterious gift giver and attacking him; hating him for a year but slowly forgiving him; being relieved when Snape believes him about not putting his name in the Goblet of Fire; Snape's encouraging smile as Harry walks to the first task with a stomach full of nerves; swimming lessons; Snape's face as he admits to being his father and the brief flicker of hurt when Harry screams that he isn't; Snape looking impressed at how fast he picks up Occlumency; Snape looking guilty after Harry makes him witness his memories of living with the Dursleys; Snape saying he'd rather die than see a Dark Mark on Harry's arm; Snape crouching in front of him as Harry sits shivering and hurt and terrified in a strange room, promising to get him out; Snape kneeling in a second room, his face perfectly calm, unaccusing, accepting, forgiving as Harry raises a wand with the intention to kill.

"Wake up."

Snape's eyes fly open and he gasps like a drowning man who's been pulled from the water by God himself.


	63. Chapter 63

The Assistant hums as he moves around the Minister for Magic's office, planting a whoopee cushion on the chair, setting up a bucket of water over the door, and jinxing the drawers on his desk so they sing "It's a Small World" whenever they're opened. He's just debating whether or not to hex all the quills to write in bright pink no matter what colour ink Fudge tries to use, when the door opens.

Fudge yells with shock when he's doused in freezing cold water and hit on the head by a bucket the moment he opens his door, and swears in an undignified manner completely unsuited to someone who's running the British wizarding world and therefore supposed to be a role model to all citizens. When a cold, high voice points this out, he looks up, blinking water out of his eyes as he stares across the room at the unnaturally pale, snake-faced, red-eyed man standing behind the desk.

Then he shrieks.

* * *

Harry sits on the sofa in Spinner's End. Snape's in the armchair. The coffin is still on the floor.

_I still can't believe you did this._

"You Wished for me to appear dead but not really be dead, and at the same time cast the Killing Curse without actually casting it?"

"Yes."

"I need a drink." Snape says and disappears into the kitchen. He comes back with a bottle of vodka and a shot glass, already wet, sits, pours himself another, and drinks it back before asking, "Are you sure I'm not an inferius?"

"Mostly."

Snape pours another shot of vodka and tosses it back.

"Do you feel like one?"

Snape opens his mouth to ask what kind of question that is, then considers it, analysing himself before answering, "I feel alive, which I imagine an inferius wouldn't."

Snape sits in his armchair, staring at Harry, rolling the shot glass between his fingers.

"Why did you do it?"

_Because you're an idiot._

"Because you owe me."

Snape doesn't ask him for what. "My death is not enough for you?"

"Death ends things. It doesn't make up for what you did. It doesn't answer my questions."

Snape doesn't want to answer those questions, but he knows he has no choice. They're long overdue this conversation.

* * *

Dumbledore's not really surprised to return to Hogwarts after a lengthy meeting with Cornelius Fudge to find the Assistant sat on the floor outside his office.

"Who's the other?"

The Assistant gets to his feet as Dumbledore approaches, rubbing off his backside. "Sorry?"

"Sirius and Remus reported that you claimed you would betray Lord Voldemort for three people, including Harry. Severus Snape is one; who's the other?"

"My brother."

Dumbledore frowns. The Assistant smiles thinly. "Shall we go up to your office and have a chat? How was the meeting with Cornelius?" he adds as they head up.

"Curious. He seemed quite convinced that Lord Voldemort broke into his office to pull pranks on him and then left singing 'It's a Small World' as he attacked everyone in his way."

"That sounds awfully odd. Was anyone injured?"

"A few bruises but nothing that couldn't be fixed in a jiffy."

"Maybe he didn't feel particularly murderous today."

"Indeed. Just as peculiar was Dolores Umbridge interrupting our meeting to urgently confess that she conspired to have Harry expelled from Hogwarts and even used the Imperius Curse on Henry Athelstan to ensure it happened, then she insisted on being immediately arrested and taken to Azkaban."

"Dreadful to hear that the Hogwarts Headmistress would do such a thing," the Assistant replies calmly. "But I'm glad to hear she's taken responsibility."

Dumbledore stops at the top of the stairs to look at the Assistant and ask, "Is Dolores Umbridge guilty of what she confessed?"

The Assistant folds his arms over his chest. "What's more important: justice, or following the rules?"

"There's no justice in punishment disproportionate to one's crime."

"If Umbridge wasn't guilty of what she confessed, it doesn't mean she hasn't committed equally vile deeds."

"Then why not confess to those?"

"Because they wouldn't have the same domino effect. In any case, you can do nothing about Umbridge's confession, whether it's true or not. We both know you're not going to call the Aurors on me because we both know that would be a very silly waste of time. Shall we go inside?"

Dumbledore's return to the office is greeted by cries of welcome from the portraits. He thanks them and goes to the bird perch in the corner, where Fawkes is already sitting. The bird lets out a trill cry as Dumbledore reaches up to stroke him and the Assistant shudders, the call making him feel something he can't quite identify as either good or bad.

"Have a seat, Assistant," Dumbledore says, settling into the chair behind his desk. "Or would you prefer I call you Harry?"

The Assistant drops into one of the two chairs facing the desk. "Assistant is fine. How long have you known my name?"

"Since October."

The Assistant nods. "Harry saw something through Voldemort?"

Dumbledore looks at him with a piercing gaze.

"He doesn't know. Voldemort, I mean. He doesn't know about the connection between them."

"Between you."

The Assistant shakes his head. "I've got no connection to the Lord Voldemort you know, save for the Dark Mark on my arm."

"But you are the person known as Harry Potter."

"I'm a version of the person most commonly known as Harry Potter, yes."

"Explain what you mean by that."

The Assistant smiles. "I know how much you like being right. Tell me your theories and what you think you've figured out, and I'll tell you if you're right and fill in the gaps."

"Or lead me astray with falsehoods you think I want to hear."

"Would it make you feel better if I took a dose of Veritaserum?"

"Veritaserum can be fooled."

"That it can. So I guess you'll just have to take my word for it."

"You're a known liar."

The Assistant shrugs. "I'll have this conversation in my true face, but there's really not much I can do to make you believe me, Albus. If you're going to distrust every word I say, I'll leave, but I've got information you need to know."

Dumbledore leans forward in his seat, resting his elbows on the desk and linking his fingers. "Let me see your true face."

The Assistant's face morphs into his true appearance and he sits silently for a minute as Dumbledore inspects him, gaze lingering on the lightning bolt scar on his forehead, on the two real eyes, the sharp line of his cheekbones and jaw that didn't come from Snape or Lily. He's got shadows under his eyes and the nearly healed cut on his cheek from Yaxley. Dumbledore traces a finger along his own cheek, expression questioning.

"Whipping Hex," the Assistant explains. "I expressed an opinion one of the Death Eaters didn't approve of."

Dumbledore leans back. "You were adopted."

The Assistant nods. "By three people."

"I confess that I cannot think by whom."

"James, as a baby. I'm told it happened within days of my birth. Then Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy, when I was eight."

"Then the brother you referred to is Draco Malfoy?"

The Assistant nods again.

"Very well, but I think we're getting ahead of ourselves," Dumbledore says, "which will only lead to confusion. Let us begin at the beginning. You're a time traveller."

"Yes."

"But not from our future. Harry Evans has not been adopted by anyone."

"Correct."

"But you are someone he could have become."

"Technically."

* * *

"Voldemort told me you're the one who first told him about the prophecy," Harry says to Snape. "Did you?"

"Yes."

Harry looks away, nods, swallows, glances back. "Did you hate me?"

Pain flits across Snape's face. "No. I've never hated you."

"Then why did you tell him about it? It made him try to kill me. It made him kill my mum and you said before that you loved her."

"I do."

"Then why did you tell him?"

Snape puts the shot glass on the rickety table, wishing he could pour another shot but knowing this isn't a conversation that should be had while intoxicated.

"I don't know what Dumbledore and the Dark Lord have told you, but Sybill Trelawney made that prophecy during a job interview she had with Dumbledore. It was held in the Hog's Head pub in Hogsmeade the winter before you were born. I was eavesdropping when Trelawney made the prophecy."

"You're not answering my question."

"I didn't know it was about you, Harry. I didn't even realise it could potentially be about you because I didn't even know you existed then. It was a few weeks after Lily and I... had the affair, and I didn't know she was pregnant. Possibly she didn't even know at that point. When I told the Dark Lord what I'd overheard, it was because I knew it would be useful to him. I didn't know it had anything to do with my unborn child—with Lily's child."

"If you had—"

"I would never have told him."

"But you'd have put someone else's child in danger. You'd have put Neville in danger."

"Are you looking for an apology for the person that I am? I was a Death Eater. I believed in the Dark Lord's ideals, even if I didn't always approve of his methods. I was nineteen years old and yes, I would have sacrificed some nameless, faceless child because that's all they were to me. Just another person I didn't know and thought I would never meet, but they were a potential threat to the Dark Lord so I told him about it."

* * *

Dumbledore says nothing for a while and the Assistant remains equally quiet, glancing around the room at the various portraits, most of whom are feigning sleep. He knows they're only faking; the portraits always fake it when something interesting happens in the office.

"A time loop?" Dumbledore says eventually.

"Bingo."

"For how long?"

"How long is the loop? About nineteen years. Fifth of November seventy-nine to the first of May ninety-eight. How long have I been in it? God knows. I lost count of the years a long time ago."

Dumbledore's eyebrows jump and he straightens up slightly. "A reset loop. You're as clever as Harry is then."

The Assistant snorts. "No, I was just stupid. I wasn't aiming for a time loop—you'd have to be an idiot to do that—I just buggered up. Got the ritual wrong, went back further than I intended, and got stuck."

"I assume you've not yet figured out how to break it."

"I've been told by a semi-reliable source that it involves the death of Voldemort. Unfortunately the source was a bit vague on the details of exactly how Voldemort was meant to die, but I can tell you that it's not by shooting, burning, the Killing Curse, suffocation, or stabbing him repeatedly and screaming vulgar obscenities then pissing on his dead body. Time loops tend to stretch the boundaries of one's sanity," he adds at Dumbledore's startled look. "Also I might have been a little bit drunk. But before you mention the Horcruxes, I know about all those and had them destroyed before I stabbed him."

Dumbledore's expression doesn't change but he reaches into his robe pocket and pulls out a ring and a slip of parchment, laying them on the desk between them. The ring is gold with a large black stone set into it. The Assistant reaches forward and picks up the parchment. The only thing on it is a simply drawn smiley face.

"I did think of putting something more mocking but I'm not much of an artist."

"Where's the real one?"

"Safe."

"But not destroyed."

"I'm working a theory of only letting my counterpart destroy the Horcruxes."

"Then you've failed. One of them has already been destroyed by Severus."

"The diary? Bugger." He thinks for a moment, then shrugs. "Alright, lets work with the idea of only his blood line, so Harry gets the rest."

"Do you know where the rest are?"

"Yup, but I'm not telling you the details because then you won't have the fun of hunting them down, and retrieving all those memories you plan to share with Harry over the course of the next year. And let's be honest here, Albus, you're wouldn't really trust me even if I did tell you where they were."

"If you know where they are, Voldemort can be defeated much sooner," Dumbledore says, ignoring his last sentence.

"You say that like it should convince me, Albus."

"Shouldn't it? Isn't his defeat the reason you betrayed him?"

"No, I betrayed him because he had Severus killed and he kept me away so I couldn't stop it."

"Severus always gave me the impression you were no more than acquaintances; why does his death bother you so?"

"Let's not play stupid, Albus. He the counterpart to my father. It pains me when he dies."

"But he is only a counterpart. Surely his death is irrelevant to you."

The Assistant looks at him for a long moment then turns his eyes on Fawkes. "In my original timeline, Dad raised me—Severus raised me—after Mum and James died. I grew up with him and I loved him, but when I was six he died and it was my fault. The death of every other Severus Snape bothers me because in all my years I've never quite managed to get over my own guilt and Daddy issues."

* * *

"Why did you leave me with the Dursleys?"

Snape can't meet his gaze. Harry clenches his jaw angrily. Only the protections he put up earlier keep the house from being damaged.

"I don't have a satisfactory answer to that, Harry," Snape says quietly. "I've told you before—I thought my threats would stop him. I thought the protections on the house were too important to take you from there. I was wrong, I know that now, but there's nothing I can do about it. I can't change the past, Harry."

"If you could, would you have taken me away?"

"If I could, I would never have let you go there in the first place."

"Why did you never tell me you were my father? Why not tell me when you took me in during the summer before my first year?"

"Because I knew you would hate me."

"So you were never going to tell me? You would have just let me go my whole life thinking James was my dad if he'd really been dead?"

Snape hesitates, considers lying, but eventually admits, "Most likely. I would've rather you thought well of me as a mentor than hated me as a father. I know what it's like to dislike one's father. I thought it would be better if you had some idealised version of a man who was willing to die for you than the truth of a man who failed you."

"Why did Mum even sleep with you? Why did she cheat on James? Everyone says they loved each other." He pauses, seeing Snape's jaw clench and his eyes flick away at those words, then asks, "Did Mum know you loved her?"

"She knew I had feelings for her," Snape says, looking a tad uncomfortable, "but I don't think she knew that I loved her."

"And the affair?" Harry pushes, uncaring of Snape's discomfort. These are his parents; he deserves to know.

"Guy Fawkes Night was Lily's favourite Muggle holiday," Snape tells him with clear reluctance. "She lived in this town as a child, about half a mile away from here, and every year she and her father would attend the Guy Fawkes celebration that's held on the other side of the river, even when she got older. Her father died in May of seventy-nine and she had planned to celebrate the night with Potter instead, but he forgot about it or stood her up. I was at the celebrations and found her, crying. I comforted her and things... happened. I'm sure you don't need the details."

* * *

"Tell me about your original timeline," Dumbledore says. "How is it different from this one?"

"How is it not? Things change even without my interference and there's so many things different even from the start. I told you James adopted me right after birth—I don't know if you've been told, but in this timeline James didn't know Severus was Harry's Dad until the night Voldemort attacked Godric's Hollow."

"Ohh," Dumbledore say softly. "It's why he left the protection of the Fidelius."

The Assistant nods. "That's what Lucius tells me. Saved him from death but drove him right to Lucius instead. Anyway, like I said, they died and Dad took me in, raised me for five years then died. Your counterpart shipped me off to the Dursleys, but Lucius wasn't very happy about that. Nor was I for that matter—some things never change and the Dursleys are always arseholes."

"So Lucius adopted you."

"Two years of legal battles, but yeah. Draco and I were playmates while I was with Dad so Lucius knew all about me and wanted the Boy Who Lived close by, so he eventually got Dumbledore overruled and took me in, and once the adoption was done I was well out of Dumbledore's reach."

"I get the impression you rather dislike my counterpart."

"Dad raised me to be wary of him. He was an interfering old man, then he comes along when I'm six years old and newly orphaned to put me with people I've never met and who hate me just for being magic, and he tells me I'm supposed to stay with them? Yeah, I disliked him, and once Lucius got his claws in me, that was it. Dumbledore was the bad guy. By the time I started at Hogwarts, I was everything you'd expect from a Death Eater's child."

"And how were your school years?"

"First year was fine. You know, lessons, detentions, being a child. All the usual stuff. But then Quirrell got his hands on the Philosopher's Stone."

"Ah."

"Yeah. He was in full power by the end of my fourth year. Think the first war, but worse because Dumbledore was dead and I was a loyal Death Eater."

"At fourteen?" Dumbledore asks with a raised eyebrow.

"Oh yeah. I've got power, Albus, and on top of that I was a self-assured young man who'd been raised to believe in his ideals. I willingly and eagerly submitted to him and I was his most dangerous weapon."

"What happened to make you try and go back in time?"

"A lot of little things, but it started with Draco."

"Did something happen to him?"

"I did."

* * *

"If the Dark Lord finds out what you've done, he'll kill Black."

Harry glances at Snape. "Do you care? You hate him."

"I care about you."

"I just have to keep you secret and I'm the only one who knows about you. I didn't tell anyone."

"That doesn't mean no one will find out."

"Do you want me to kill you?"

"I'm not suicidal," Snape says dryly, "and I certainly despise the thought of you murdering anyone, let alone me, but if it's what has to be done, I won't fight you. I meant what I said before. No matter how much I despise Black, I recognise that he is important to you. I do have one request if you're going to do it, however."

"What's that?"

Snape points to the bottle of vodka on the table. "Let me finish that first."

* * *

When the Assistant's finishes telling the story of how he killed the Draco Malfoy of his timeline, Dumbledore looks sadly shocked.

"You were Bound in Animancupium by your own adoptive father?"

The Assistant nods. "Voldemort's a distrustful bastard and Lucius is nothing if not loyal. He did as he was told, and I did as I was told."

"I doubt you were told to go back in time."

The Assistant smiles. "I was never told not to."

"Does Voldemort—the Voldemort of this timeline—know all this?"

"Yes, but I might have given him a slightly falsified version of the ending."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, I might have told him that the reason I went back in time was because the Muggles in my timeline found out about magic and planned to use nuclear weapons against Voldemort, and implied that the reason for my turning back time was to prevent that happening."

"When in actuality it was to prevent Voldemort ever coming to power."

"Something like that. Didn't exactly work out."

"Why did you join the Death Eaters in this timeline?" Dumbledore asks him. "Were you hoping to destroy Voldemort from within?"

"Eh... not exactly. I knew I could mess with his plans, and I wasn't exactly Death Eater of the Year, but mostly I joined because he captured me and tortured me and I just sort of went with it. I'm old, Albus. I've lived a lot of timelines. I've seen a lot of things happen over and over again and been unable to stop it, or I've stopped it only to find out something worse happens instead. You've got to realise that doing that—living this shit repeatedly and failing to break the loop—it gets to you. Sometimes I just can't be fucked to fight. Occasionally I give myself up to drink or drugs or whatever other self-destructive behaviour takes my fancy, but sometimes it's just a matter of doing whatever the life lends me to do. I didn't plan to become a major player in this timeline, but Voldemort tricked me into a trap last summer, stripped my powers and said either I joined him or I died. I didn't fancy starting my time loop over just then, so I went with it." He pauses, sighs, then adds, "And then he transferred my Bond and I had no choice."

Dumbledore frowns, leaning forwards. "I thought Animancupium was unbreakable."

"It is, but it can still be transferred. Without the Master's input, I might add, at least when the Slave in question is a wizard. You're aware it was designed to be used on Muggles?"

"I am, though I confess that's all I know of it. It's an archaic spell."

"Right, well when the Slave is magical their power twists the magic of the spell. It makes it deadly, for one. When a Master dies, the magic of the Bond snaps; when the Slave is a wizard, their magic is intrinsically interwoven with the magic of the spell and the force of it breaking ripples back and kills them. It also makes it so their Bond can be transferred from Master to Master without the current Master's input, so Voldemort was able to get one of his Death Eaters to use the ritual and take my Bond, leaving me unable to disobey him."

"Voldemort didn't take it himself?"

"A broken soul can be neither Master or Slave in Animancupium. His soul is far too damaged to take part. He gave me to one of the Death Eaters; don't ask who, I'm not telling."

"Why?"

"Because I'm still Bound to him, which means keeping him safe. From everyone."

"If you wish to transfer—"

"No."

"You would rather stay Bound to a Death Eater?"

"I would rather stay Bound to a man who's currently mute, locked away where no one but I can get to him, and under a compulsion to keep him from committing suicide. He's not a danger to me right now, which means he can't make me a danger to anyone else and he can't stop me revealing lots of Voldemort's nasty little secrets."

Dumbledore straightens, his gaze growing intense, attention focused. "How am I to know that what you tell me is true? If you are indeed bound to obey Voldemort, then this could be nothing more than a scheme to feed me false information."

"It'd be a nice little plan, wouldn't it? But I understand your scepticism, so for now I'll give you one—the big one—and when you've confirmed the truth of it and know I'm being honest, I'll tell you more."

Dumbledore leans back in his seat. "Then tell me."

"James Potter is Bound to Lucius. He's being used as a spy against you and he doesn't even know it. It's why he was sent back unharmed."


	64. Chapter 64

"Do you have a way for me to contact you later?" Dumbledore asks the Assistant when he's preparing to leave.

"Leave a message in the cave in the mountain over Hogsmeade. I'll check it daily."

* * *

"I don't want to kill you."

"I'm grateful to hear that."

"It doesn't mean I've forgiven you."

"I don't expect you to."

Harry glares at Snape, angry that he's being so calm about it. "Why are you so accepting of that?"

"What do you want from me, Harry? Do you want me to be hurt that you won't forgive me? Do you want me to get indignant and demand forgiveness I don't deserve?"

"I don't know!" he yells, then sighs. "I don't know. I just... it doesn't make sense to me, how you could do what you did when I showed up—taking me in and getting all my medical stuff sorted and teaching me to swim and everything—but you couldn't do it when I was a kid. I don't get it and I want to hate you for not being there, but I can't because you were going to get me out of that room and now you're willing to die for me and it pisses me off that you're just sitting there looking guilty, but you don't care that I'm angry at you and you don't care that I could kill you and you should because I'm your fucking kid!"

_Congratulations. It's taken you a whole year but you've finally admitted it._

"Oh shut up," he snarls.

"What's it saying?"

"Nothing. It doesn't matter."

Snape doesn't argue with him. "I do care that you're angry at me. Do you think I like being hated by my own child?"

"Then fucking show it!" he yells. "Stop being selfish and just show me you fucking care!"

"Selfish?" Snape repeats, his own voice rising. "You think I'm being selfish?"

"You are! You don't want to deal with me being angry so you think you can just sacrifice yourself and that makes everything okay. You don't get to only care when I'm in trouble; that's not how it works. That's not what dad's do!"

"Is that what you want? For me to be a dad after all this time refusing to acknowledge me as such?"

"I wanted you to be a dad when I was a kid!"

"I can't change that, Harry! I'm sorry. I can say that as many time as you need to hear it, but I can't go back and change things no matter how much either of us might want to. But you're wrong to think I don't care, or only care when you're in trouble. I do care about you, I just... don't know how to show it. I don't handle emotions well."

"So I can blame you for that too? My emotional outbursts?"

"Why not?" Snape says dryly. "Blame me for everything bad and give Lily all the credit for anything good about you. Will it make you fell better?"

"Stop doing that!" Harry yells, and the bottle of vodka explodes.

Vodka drips down Snape's face and over his robes. A few shards of glass are buried in his cheek and the back of his hand, which he threw up too late to protect his face. Harry clenches his jaw and the glass vanishes and the wounds heal themselves, closing up to leave only trickles of blood to show they were ever there.

"Sorry," he mutters and a hand towel appears on Snape's lap. He lifts it and rubs his face dry then wipes off his hands.

"Stop doing what?" he asks when he's done, dropping the towel onto the table and taking up his wand to cast a Drying Charm on his robes.

"Stop trying to make yourself a scapegoat and sacrifice, like letting me hate you will make everything better."

"What else am I supposed to do? You hate me. You've made that perfectly clear plenty of times. Yes, I'd like for you to not hate me—I'll be honest and say I'd like it if you actually liked me, but after everything I'm not foolish enough to expect that. So what do you expect of me, Harry? To hate myself for what I've done? Because I already do, but I've got enough dignity that I won't publicise my misery."

"You could try and make up for it."

"How? Tell me, Harry. How can I make up for it? If there's a way, then I will do whatever it takes, but you're going to have to tell me how because I honestly don't see how I can make up for failing you like I have."

_We could use him. He might know where to get the kind of books we need and he's going to have to do something with himself now everyone thinks he's dead. It's not like he can go back to teaching. Anyone finds out he's alive and Sirius dies, so secret research seems like a good way to spend his time._

Harry has to bite his tongue to keep from responding out loud and blood fills his mouth as he thinks back, 'The Assistant knows how to break the deal. We only need to make him tell us.'

 _Then his question still stands: how can he make it up to you?_ Can _he make it up to you? Do you even want him to?_

"What's it saying to you?"

Harry glances at Snape then looks away and gets up. "I have to go home. Sirius and James will be getting worried."

"I don't suppose you had any plan in mind for what I'm supposed to do now."

Harry shakes his head. "I'll come back tomorrow or the day after. I checked your cupboards; you have food."

"I can't stay here," Snape argues, standing.

"I put protections on the house. From the outside it looks empty still and I put up a Perception Filter Charm so people ignore it, and no one's got any reason to come here except me anyway. Just don't leave. I'll think of something."

Snape nods, then clears his throat. "Harry, about what happened at—"

"I have to go," Harry says and Disapparates. Snape drops back into the chair and buries his face in his hands with a heavy sigh, wishing he still had his vodka.

* * *

Harry's not surprised to return home and find Sirius and James waiting up for him, but he doesn't expect James to be sat with his elbows on his knees, hands tangled in his hair and shaking as he draws in harsh, fast breaths, clearly trying not to have a panic attack. He jerks his head up when Harry comes in, relief filling his eyes and he gulps down a breath but chokes on it and starts coughing.

"Two," Sirius says to Harry, sat by James and rubbing his back.

"What?"

"That's how many panic attacks he's had since you left."

Harry looks away guiltily.

"Going to tell us where you've been?"

"No."

"You drunk?"

"No," Harry says again, glancing at him in confusion. "Why would you think that?"

"You smell like alcohol."

"I was with someone who was drinking. He spilt some."

"Who?"

"Just someone," he snaps. "Stop prying into my business."

"You're my godson; where you disappear off to in the middle of the night is my business."

"I told you I was leaving. It's not like I ran out without saying anything."

"You didn't wait for permission."

"Would you have given it?"

"That's besides the point."

"Which means no."

"Why should I?" Sirius says angrily, getting to his feet. "It's the middle of night, there's a dark wizard out to kill you, and you want to go wandering off on your own."

"He doesn't want to kill me. He wants nothing to do with me anymore, remember? And he's made sure I can do nothing to him either."

"That doesn't mean it's safe! Just because he let you go doesn't mean him or his Death Eaters won't attack you if they come across you alone."

"I can look after myself."

"I might believe that if you hadn't spent a week being tortured!"

"That's—I wasn't alone anyway."

"Then who were you with? Draco? I know I said I don't trust him, but if that's where you're going I'd still rather you told us so we know where the hell you are."

"It doesn't matter! Just drop it!"

"I'm trying to look out for you, Harry! I'm your godfather, that's what I'm supposed to do."

"Well don't! I can look out for myself! I don't need you!" he says, storming past them to the stairs, pretending not to notice the hurt look on Sirius' face.

Harry's halfway up the stairs when he stiffens suddenly and falls backwards. James and Sirius swear, but don't move quick enough to stop Harry falling and there's a snap of bone breaking when he hits the bottom of the stairs. Sirius grabs a pillow from the sofa and rushes over to him, pulling him away from the stairs then easing the pillow under his head and shifting back to wait the seizure out.

* * *

The first thing Harry's aware of is hands touching his face and he jerks away, flinging out a hand and then hearing the thud of a body hitting something hard, closely followed by a grunt of pain. He turns his head to look and tries to push himself up at the same time, but pain lashes through his arm and his vision swims then goes black.

He comes around again just a minute later to find James leant over him.

"Don't attack me, I'm not going to hurt you."

"I know that," Harry says with a small frown.

"You attacked Sirius."

" _What?_ "

He sits up, gasping as pain shoots through his arm again, looking down to see his wrist is twisted oddly, clearly broken. He Wishes it fixed and winces as it snaps back into place, then twists it, testing it's alright as he looks up. Sirius is sat against the wall, one hand gingerly probing the back of his head, the other clutching at his ribs as he breathes harshly.

"Sirius!" He crawls over, kneeling by him, hovering worriedly. "Sirius, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to, I swear. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Are you—let me..." He gets up on his knees, laying his hand over the one Sirius has on the back of his head, apologising again when he winces, then making a Wish.

"Oh," Sirius says softly. "Ohh, that's better."

Harry sits back on his heels, drawing his hand away. "I'm sorry."

"Stop apologising, kid, you sound like a broken record."

He bites back another apology, watching him nervously. Sirius leans his head back, resting it against the wall and lets his hand slips away from his ribs as he looks at Harry.

"Going to fix yourself?"

"I did," he says, lifting his hand, but Sirius points to his head and Harry reaches up to touch it, surprised to find blood dripping down from a cut just above his hairline. He fixes it easily, wipes the blood away, and focuses on Sirius again.

"I'm—"

"Don't say sorry again. I heard you the first five times."

"I didn't mean it when I said I don't need you," he says instead. "I do. And I didn't mean to hurt you," he adds, then feels tears well up in his eyes. He rubs at them angrily, annoyed with himself, and pulls away when Sirius reaches for him.

"Harry, it's alright. It was an accident and I'm fine."

"It's not that. I'm—I don't know why—I can't help it," he says angrily, staring at his knees and unable to hold the tears back.

"You've had a rough time, kid, it's alright to cry."

"It's all I've done!" he cries. "Ever since—I just keep crying and it's stupid and I want it to stop!"

"Harry," Sirius says, his voice a choked whisper, and Harry looks up to see there's tears in his eyes too. He opens his arms and Harry leans into him, pressing his face against his chest and letting himself cry. Sirius wraps both arms around him and presses his cheek to Harry's hair, looking over at James, whose own eyes are wet. Sirius says nothing, but James comes over, sitting beside him and leaning against his side.

* * *

Harry wakes up to the noise of someone knocking at the front door and for a moment he's confused to find himself in bed, stripped to his boxers with Padfoot curled at his feet and Prongs on the floor, because he can't remember going to bed, but then he remembers falling asleep downstairs after spending a while crying with Sirius. They must have put him to bed.

"Who's at the door?" James asks after transforming, sitting up and stretching to ease a crick out of his neck.

"Dumbledore," Harry answers, rubbing sleep from his eyes and Sirius transforms as well.

"That can't be good," Sirius groans, getting to his feet and heading downstairs, James and Harry following.

"Good morning, gentlemen," Dumbledore greets when Sirius opens the door, and Sirius instantly knows there's something wrong. Dumbledore's voice is light but there's no twinkle in his eye.

"What's happened?"

"Sorry?"

"Something's happened. What is it?"

"May I come in?" Dumbledore asks. Sirius steps aside, gesturing for him to enter.

"Suppose we might as well hear it with some coffee in my system."

Harry hasn't thought about how it would feel when Voldemort calls, but the sudden burst of heat along his arm feels about right.

"Sirius?"

"Yeah?"

Harry glances at Dumbledore then at James then back at Sirius. "I'm going to see Draco."

"I think you'd like to stay for a moment, Harry," Dumbledore says. "You will want to hear what I have to say. I'm sure young Mr Malfoy can wait."

Harry bites his lip, glancing between them. "I need to go."

Sirius looks at him for a long moment then asks Dumbledore, "Is it absolutely urgent he hears whatever you've got to say right now?"

"No," Dumbledore admits. Sirius glances back at Harry.

"Go."

"Sirius," James begins, but Sirius cuts him off.

"You've got two hours, kid. Make the most of them."

Harry nods, glances apologetically at James, then leaves. James glares at Sirius.

"He's not going to see Draco. Why are you letting him lie to us?"

"Because I gave him that excuse, Prongs. Wherever he's going, he's clearly not telling us but at least for now he's telling us he's leaving. If we push it, he'll just go without informing us and then we'll have no idea if he's actually coming back."

Harry hurries up to his room, grabbing a black robe and hurriedly pulling it on then Wishing Snape's Death Eater mask from his grave and pressing it to his face before Disapparating. He reappears in the Riddle House sitting room and immediately drops to one knee and murmurs a greeting. He's not the only one in there—Lucius and Bellatrix stand nearby, as does a portly, nervous looking man Harry doesn't recognise. He ignores them, his attention on Voldemort as he waits to hear why he's been summoned.

Before Harry left after his initiation, Lucius spent several minutes going over exactly what he's supposed to do when called and how to do it: always go to one knee and bow the head; keep the greeting respectfully quiet; don't rise until told to, even if it means kneeling on a hard wood floor for an hour; don't speak unless spoken to and _always_ refer to him as 'my lord'; 'out' means leave the room, 'you're dismissed' means go home; and never, ever, touch Nagini. He also taught Harry the spell to send up the Dark Mark and Voldemort granted Harry the right to delay responding to a summons if he's in a situation where his abrupt departure will cause undue suspicion, but Voldemort's perfectly clear that if he so much as suspects Harry of being late for any other reason then Sirius will pay for it.

"Have you seen the paper this morning, Harry?" Voldemort asks coldly.

"No, my lord," he answers, nervous and confused. He hasn't ever thought Voldemort would ask him about the news. He flinches when a copy of the _Prophet_ is tossed down in front of him.

"Read it."

He picks it up and his breath catches when he sees the headline.

_HE-WHO-MUST-NOT-BE-NAMED RETURNS_

_That's not good. Well, it is for the rest of the world, but it's not for you._

"How—?"

"You tell me. A week after my latest initiate and suddenly Cornelius Fudge has an abrupt change of opinion."

"I didn't do anything! I swear, it's not my fault! I wouldn't!"

He cringes when Voldemort stalks forward and grabs his chin, lifting his head to look up at him. Pain lances through Harry's scar and he grits his teeth, forcing himself not to jerk away as Voldemort grabs the mask and pulls it from his face. Voldemort makes to throw it aside then pauses, looking at it closer.

"This was Severus'."

"Yes, my lord. The Assistant gave it to me."

Voldemort's red eyes shift from the mask to Harry's face. "When?"

"The day I... when I was initiated. He came to my house."

Voldemort lets go his chin. "Has he come to you since then?"

"No."

"Give me your arm."

Voldemort drops the mask as Harry lifts his left arm and he curls his fingers around Harry's wrist, pushing his sleeve back to bare the Mark. He presses the tip of his wand to it and Harry winces, both at the wood digging into his arm and the sudden burn of the Mark, then Voldemort draws away and Harry pulls his arm back.

* * *

"What's the bad news then, Dumbledore?" Sirius asks with a sigh.

"I actually have two pieces of news, only one of which is bad. The good news—"

"Can we get the bad stuff out of the way first?" James interrupts and Sirius nods in agreement.

"Very well. I'm afraid, James, that I have reason to believe you're being used by Lucius to spy on the Order."

"Like hell he is!" Sirius bursts out, setting his mug down so hard coffee spills over the side. "Prongs isn't a spy! James—"

"They sent me back," James says, voice full of horrified realisation, and Sirius shuts up. "They sent me back. They're using me."

"But they can't—how?" Sirius demands. "The Imperius?"

Dumbledore shakes his head. "Have either of you ever heard of Animancupium?"

* * *

Ten minutes pass and nothing happens. Harry's knee is starting to hurt and he lifts it slightly, but that just puts all his weight on his foot which is worse and he puts it back down again.

"Arm," Voldemort demands again, anger in his voice, and Harry obliges, managing not to wince this time. But another ten minutes pass with no one appearing. Voldemort turns to the portly man, who cowers slightly.

"Parkinson, go to Yaxley's place. If he's not dead or dying then bring him here."

Parkinson bows and hurries out.

* * *

"But Kirith Karpel checked him when we first found him," Sirius says. "If he's been Bound, why didn't she find it then?"

"Kirith only checked for compulsions and mind altering curses. Animancupium, although a dark ritual, leaves only trace amounts of dark magic once it's complete and is almost undetectable unless one is looking for it."

"Why didn't you check for it?" James asks.

"Except for very few isolated incidents, Animancupium hasn't been used since the Viking era, and even then it was almost never used on wizards. It was designed to enslave Muggles and the use of it on a wizard is dangerous. It never even occurred to me, nor anyone else I imagine, that it might have been used on you."

"Dangerous how?" James asks worriedly.

Dumbledore's gaze is pitying. "A wizard who is Bound will die if their Master does."

Sirius glances at James, who stares at Dumbledore. "Why do you think this has been done to me when you didn't before?"

"That is connected to the good news I have. I assume you haven't seen the papers yet this morning?"

They both shake their heads. "We only got up when you knocked."

"Cornelius Fudge has finally accepted, and made public announcement of, the return of Lord Voldemort."

"About bloody time," Sirius mutters. "What made him change his tune?"

"The Assistant."

* * *

Harry's knee has gone numb by the time Parkinson comes back.

"Yaxley's flat is empty. His bedroom's been stripped and his bathroom's empty. I went to the Ministry as well, my lord, and his co-workers haven't seen him since he left on Saturday. He appears to have—"

"Fled," Voldemort snarls. "Fled out of fear. He knows what I will do to him for betraying me."

Lucius clears his throat. "My lord, if I may...?"

"Speak quickly, Lucius."

"It is possible the Assistant is solely responsible for this. He has the power to convince Cornelius Fudge of your return and he may have turned on Preston despite the, ah..." he trails off, glancing at Harry.

"Out," Voldemort orders, and Harry leaves.

* * *

"You're trusting _that guy?_ "

"Not yet," Dumbledore says calmly, "but if it does prove true that James is Bound, then yes, I will start to trust him."

"We don't even know his real name—his real face!"

"I do."

Sirius folds his arms over his chest. "Why do I get the feeling you're not going to share?"

"If he has told me the truth, and I believe he has, then his reason for keeping his identity hidden is justified."

"Fine. Check James so we can prove the bastard wrong and then we can kill him and get some revenge for Moony."

"Remus took his own revenge. The Assistant is who he attacked before Bellatrix killed him," Dumbledore explains at their questioning glances. "Remus not only injured him badly, but bit him."

"Moony would never bite anyone," Sirius says, disbelieving. "He hated the thought of making someone else a werewolf. He always said he'd never even bite Voldemort."

"In battle and when we're trying to protect the one's we love, sometimes we'll do things we never thought we would," Dumbledore says quietly.

* * *

Harry's not left waiting for long and Voldemort speaks as soon as he steps back inside the room.

"The Assistant has betrayed me. You are the only person who can match his power; if you see him, you will bring him to me immediately so that he can pay for his crimes. These," he says, flicking his wand and making an all too familiar pair of shackles appear on the floor between them, "will strip him off his power. Make sure they're on him before he's brought to me. Is that clear?"

"Yes, my lord."

"You're dismissed. Parkinson, put the word out, I want Yaxley found."

"My lord?" Harry says hesitantly, now holding the shackles gingerly in one hand.

"You've been dismissed, Harry."

"I can find Yaxley," he says quickly. "I can track him, I mean. You wouldn't have to search for him."

A terse silence follows his statement and he wonders if he's spoken out of turn, but he thinks if Voldemort's so eager to have Yaxley found then surely he won't mind an offer to help?

"How?" Voldemort asks.

"A tracking arrow. I just need some parchment and Interactive Ink—I have some at home, I can make it right now and it'll point straight to him."

"Fetch it and return here immediately."

Instead of leaving, Harry just lifts his hands and Wishes the ink to him, along with a bit of parchment and a quill.

"Show off," Bellatrix mutters as Harry crouches. He tears a corner of the parchment to give him a triangle, inks the quill and draws an arrow on it then looks up.

"What's his first name?"

"Preston," Lucius answers, watching curiously as Harry writes the name under the drawn arrow then underneath adds _000.00 miles_.

"Point me to Preston Yaxley," Harry mutters and the bit of paper spins to point north and the numbers change to read 406.54.

"Take Lucius," Voldemort says. "Find him and bring him to me."


	65. Chapter 65

Dumbledore sighs as the ghostly, pale blue chain that comes from James' chest fades away. "I'm sorry, James."

"Break it," Sirius growls as James gets up, running his hands through his hair as he turns away.

"It can't be broken," Dumbledore says apologetically, "but there is something we can do." James and Sirius instantly focus on him, eager for anything. "The Bond can be transferred. That is, you would still be Bound, but no longer to Lucius. However, I only discovered this last night and I haven't yet had time to investigate it. I don't know what side effects there may be to transferring the Bond and I think it would be ideal if you spoke to someone who is intimately familiar with them."

"The Assistant," James guesses.

"Wait, he's Bound?" Sirius says. "To who?"

"He wouldn't tell me," Dumbledore answers, "only that it's another Death Eater and his loyalty to Voldemort is forced."

"If that's true how is he betraying him now?"

"As I understand, orders from a Slave's Master can be disobeyed but at the cost of great pain. He endured enough to restrain his Master and keep him locked away."

"Could we do that with Lucius?" James asks.

"It's an option, but before you make any decision I think you should speak to the Assistant. He's more familiar with the nature of Animancupium and can tell you all you'll need to know."

* * *

_Oh this can't be good._

"Nope."

"Excuse me?" Lucius asks, glancing around them nervously. They're invisible, but he still feels vulnerable being out in the open, especially in front of Hogwarts.

"Nothing. Doesn't matter."

Lucius looks at him. "Tell me something, Evans. Does Draco know you're insane?"

"He knows I have a voice in my head."

"Hmm," Lucius says, lifting his gaze to the castle in front of them. "What now?"

Harry frowns. "What do you mean 'what now'? We find Yaxley."

"You going to break us into Hogwarts?" Lucius asks sceptically. "One of the most heavily protected places in the country?"

"I broke into Hogwarts when I was eleven. I just hope you like flying."

"Flying?" he says, then yelps in an extremely undignified manner as he lifts off the ground. Harry levitates them both up and over the gate, setting them down easily on the other side and then starting towards the castle.

"A little warning would be appreciated next time," Lucius grumbles, following him.

* * *

"I'm sorry about—"

"Don't," Sirius snarls. He stalks forward, getting in the Assistant's face, standing in the house's front door. "I don't ever want to hear his name come from your mouth, you hear me? You're here because James needs help, but I don't trust you, no matter what Dumbledore says. You're still a scumbag Death Eater."

"Understood," the Assistant says with a nod and heads through to the kitchen when Sirius gestures for him to go ahead. They get settled and resume discussing the problem of James' bond.

"You could lock Lucius up," the Assistant agrees when the idea is suggested, "but you would have to see him regularly."

"Why?" James asks, and the Assistant nods to the fingers he's tapping against the table.

"That restlessness is because of the Bond. It's probably been getting worse over the last year, but eased up after you were taken? The Bond urges you to be with him," the Assistant explains when James nods. "You've been Bonded long enough that you can probably manage a couple of years apart before it gets really bad, but eventually it'd drive you to seek him out. But a few hours in his presence about... once a month, at this stage, would be enough to satisfy the Bond."

"And if I transferred it?" James asks.

"Then you'd need to stay close to your new Master—I'm talking daily contact. You're looking at six months at least before it'd ease enough that you would be comfortable having any great distance between you for longer than a day. Trust me, being separated from your Master after a fresh Bonding is not pleasant."

"That wouldn't be a problem," James says, looking at Sirius. Sirius glances at him briefly then looks again.

"Wait, are you... Prongs, are you saying you'd want it transferred to me?"

"There's no one else to give it to."

"I'd advise against that," the Assistant says, and both men look at him hatefully.

"We don't really care what you advise," Sirius says.

"I get that, but I know you've got a Word of Death Curse on you. If you die—"

"Then I die too," James finishes. "Dumbledore told us, but I don't care."

Sirius looks at him. "James—"

"I mean it. You're all I've got left, Padfoot. Pettigrew betrayed me, Lily's dead, Remus is dead, Harry's not mine and I could never look after him myself anyway. If you died, I'd only end up back in the psych ward."

* * *

"A girls' bathroom?" Lucius says dryly as Harry pushes open the door of Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. "Are you sure that arrow of yours is working right?"

Harry nods, sticking it in his pocket. "Yeah, I know exactly were he is."

"In a stall?"

Harry ignores the comment and moves over to the sinks. He's not entirely sure which one is the one leading to the Chamber of Secrets—there was only a gaping hole when he was in it before, after all—so he stands a little back from them, closes his eyes and thinks hard about snakes, then hisses, " _Open_."

He hears a creak and groan of shifting stone and opens his eyes to see one of the sinks lowering into the floor. When it's vanished from sight completely, Lucius peers into the hole behind it, then turns to Harry.

"Firstly, where does that lead, and secondly, I really hope you don't expect me to go down it because it's _filthy_."

"If you're more interested in keeping your robes clean than seeing the Chamber of Secrets then by all means, stay here."

"You're joking."

"Nope. That leads to the Chamber of Secrets."

Lucius looks at the hole, back to Harry, then at the hole again. "This is the same Chamber of Secrets that houses Slytherin's monster?"

"You're a pureblood, Lucius, what have you got to be scared of?"

Lucius bristles. "I'm not scared."

"It's dead anyway," Harry tells him, approaching the pipe. Lucius doesn't let him see the small look of relief on his face.

* * *

"You could still lock him away," Sirius suggests.

"I'm willing to put him with my Master," the Assistant says. "They can keep each other company."

"Who is your Master?"

"That's not something you need to know just yet."

"You're expecting us to trust what you're saying but you won't even tell us your Master's name. For all we know you're lying about even having one."

"You're welcome to test me."

"Do it," Sirius says to Dumbledore. "I want to know if he's telling the truth."

Dumbledore draws his wand again, turning to the Assistant and waving it, murmuring a lengthy spell. A ghostly, dark yellow chain fades into view, pulled taut and running from his chest, across the room and disappearing through the wall.

"That's different to mine," James points out. "Mine was blue and lax."

"Mine's newer," the Assistant says, pressing his hand to his chest where the chain is and watching it fade away again. "I'm not so comfortable being as far away from my Master. As for the colour, that's just a matter of who you're Bonded to. My Master's soul is yellow; Lucius' is blue. It affects things like your Patronus form as well."

Sirius and James glance at each other, remembering the peacock James was so angry at conjuring in April.

* * *

"I imagined Slytherin's Chamber would be a little more... opulent."

"It was built a thousand years ago, under a lake, and has only been visited a handful of times in the past millennium. Why would it be opulent?"

Lucius scowls at him and doesn't answer.

"Look!"

There's a cage further in the Chamber, large and furnished like a bedroom, with Preston Yaxley lying on a bed inside it. He hears them coming and gets up, face surprised as they approach the cage. Harry freezes, staring at him and feeling his heart begin to speed up. He hadn't known the name Yaxley, but he certainly recognises the face of the man inside the cage—the same man who tried to rape him the first time.

"My, my, Preston, you're in something of a situation," Lucius drawls, stepping up to the bars while Harry hangs back. He wishes he never offered to find Yaxley now. He only did it because he thought he could earn himself some good will by offering to find someone Voldemort wanted.

Yaxley glares at Lucius. He goes to the table inside the cell, bending to scribble something on a piece of parchment then holding it up for them to read.

 _Get me out_.

"You've been gone four days and you're already resorting to crude communication? I pity you, Preston."

* * *

"I don't want to transfer it."

Sirius shoots James an incredulous look. "Why not? After everything Lucius did..."

"I know, I just... I don't know. I don't want to."

"Of course you don't," the Assistant remarks, earning a dirty look from Sirius and then elaborating, "Lucius is your Master. Whatever he's done, you don't want to lose him. It's how the Bond works. It will always make you feel favourable to your Master, no matter what they do."

"Then we transfer it," Sirius says. "The Bond is stopping you from thinking about it properly, but we all know staying Bound to Lucius is bad, so we transfer it."

"Isn't that my decision?"

"Ultimately, yes," Dumbledore replies to James. "But, my boy, try to consider it logically. Your feelings are being influenced by magic, not dissimilar to the Imperius Curse; anything you think is biased and not necessarily what you would feel if you were free of influence."

"Lucius has already used you against us once," Sirius adds. "You don't want to let him do it again, surely?"

"No," James agrees hesitantly.

"So it's better if you transfer it to me."

"Yes, but..." He trails off with a sigh. "Alright. I don't want to, but I know I should."

"You know you'll have to be careful about everything you say to him," the Assistant warns Sirius.

"I'm not going to start giving him orders," Sirius snaps. "I'm not a bastard like that."

"It doesn't matter whether you intend to. Every word you say to him will be an order. Tell him to pass the salt at the dinner table and he has to pass it. Tell him to—"

"Yeah, I get it. You're not needed anymore."

"So you've realised that if you're having an argument and you tell him to go fuck himself, he has to go find a dildo and shove it up his arse?"

Silence follows that statement. Dumbledore coughs and doesn't meet anyone's eyes. Sirius looks startled. James fidgets uncomfortably. The moment's broken only when there's a crack and Dobby appears at the Assistant's side. James' chair scrapes as he stands up, staggering back, but Dobby's attention is purely on the Assistant.

"Master Assistant's Master is being found!" he cries, and the Assistant's face goes white. He jumps to his feet, grabbing the elf by the arm.

"Take me to him now!" he demands, and they vanish, leaving Sirius and Dumbledore looking at each other in bewilderment

"It's Lucius," James says.

"What's Lucius?"

"His Master. That was Dobby, the Malfoys' house elf."

"Lucius can't be his Master," Dumbledore says. "Animancupium only allows one bond."

"Then what's the Assistant doing with Malfoys' elf?" Sirius asks.

* * *

The Assistant flicks his hand as soon as they appear in the Chamber of Secrets and Lucius, Yaxley, and Harry crumple, unconscious before they even hit the floor. He lets go of Dobby, immensely grateful that house elves can bypass the protections on the Hogwarts castle, and stalks forward, coming to stand over Harry.

"Of course it's you," he mutters, sighing. "You and your bloody tracking arrows. I should have put more protections up."

He presses his hands to his face, letting out a frustrated growl. He spends several minutes thinking, trying to figure out what to do, then goes over to Lucius, planting his feet on either side of his hips and crouching down, right hand splayed on his chest and grabbing his chin with his left. Lucius jerks awake with a gasp and starts to rise, but the Assistant shoves him down again.

"Traitor!" Lucius snarls, grabbing the Assistant's wrist to try and shove him off only for his hands to get jerked away and pinned to the stone floor by invisible bonds.

"Yeah, I am, but Voldemort brought this on himself. He shouldn't have killed Severus."

"Severus was a traitor; he deserved to die, as you will."

"Has he put an execution order on me or does he want me brought in alive?"

"Alive. For now."

"Let me guess, he put Harry on it because he's the only one that can match me for power?"

Lucius says nothing but he doesn't need to.

"Yeah, I thought so." He sighs, looking over at Harry. "And if he doesn't then Sirius pays for it."

"So give yourself up, Assistant. If you care for the brat so much, let him bring you in."

"I don't fancy restarting just yet, Lucius."

He forces Lucius back into unconsciousness and rises again, running a hand over his face.

"Master Assistant? What is you wanting Dobby to do?"

"I've no idea." He pauses, lowers his hand, looking at Harry, then his eyes drift over to Yaxley. "Actually, I might. Inhumane idea but then he was never very humane to me."

"Is you needing Dobby's help?"

"No, thank you." He waves his hand and the cage and everything in it disappears except Yaxley. The Assistant goes to him, crouching by the unconscious man, considering him thoughtfully for a minute, then waving his hand. Yaxley vanishes, but in his place is a thin gold necklace with a small gold leopard pendant. The Assistant picks it up, letting it hang from his fingers as he inspects it, then gives a satisfied nod and puts it around his neck. When the leopard hangs against his chest, he touches a finger to it, charming it to be unbreakable then dropping his hand and turning to Dobby.

"Alright, can you take me to the outside of the house you picked me up from, please?"

When they get there, the Assistant says to the elf, "Thanks for all your help, Dobby, but I'm not going to need it anymore. I'd really, really, _really_ appreciate it if you didn't tell anyone about anything that happened today, though. Ever."

"Dobby is being a good elf and keeping Master Assistant's secrets!"

The Assistant shoots him a grateful smile. "Look, I'm not going to have much work for you now, but I'm going to save you a few years of looking around elsewhere: go to Albus Dumbledore and ask him for work. He won't mind paying you. Just don't tell him my secrets, alright?"

* * *

" _Rennervate!_ "

Harry blinks his eyes open and sits up abruptly when Lucius Malfoy's face swims into view, scrambling away from him and looking around, a horrible sense of déjà vu hitting him when he realises he's on the floor of the Chamber of Secrets. It takes him a moment to figure out why, then he scrambles to his feet, looking around, but the cage in which they found Yaxley is gone—and so's Yaxley. Harry's glad not to be in his presence anymore, but he also realise it's not good news.

"Fuck."

"That about sums it up," Lucius drawls, standing as well. "I sincerely hope you can get us out of this place."

Harry digs a hand in his pocket, taking out Yaxley's tracking arrow and holding it in his palm. "Direct me to Preston Yaxley."

It spins in his hand... and keeps spinning, whizzing around and refusing to settle.

"What does that mean?"

"I don't know," Harry says with a frown. "That's never happened before."

"Just make sure that when we report to the Dark Lord, you tell him _you're_ the one who failed to find Yaxley."

Harry looks up. "It's not my fault the bloody thing won't work!"

"It's your obscure magic. Now get me out of this place before I catch some horrible disease."

* * *

Sirius answers the door when there's a knock and his gaze narrows instantly when he sees the Assistant stood outside.

"Where'd you go?"

"My Master was discovered. I had to go help him before he was taken or killed."

"I can't see that it would be a terrible loss if he was. It'd be two Death Eaters with one blow."

The Assistant nods, fingering the pendant around his neck which Sirius doesn't remember seeing earlier. "Yeah. But Albus mentioned how when a Master dies, the backlash—"

"Kills the Slave. Like I said, two monsters with one blow."

"Except the backlash doesn't just hit the Slave, it makes their magic go boom like an explosive potion."

"What's your point?"

"My point is that if I die because my Master dies, it'd cause an explosion large enough to wipe out your house."

Sirius stiffens when the Assistant reaches into his pocket, but he just draws out a thin book which he hands to him.

"It contains the ritual you'll need to transfer James' Bond. If you've got nothing more to ask me about it all, I'll leave for good and get out of your hair. And just so you know, he doesn't have to be conscious to do it."

Sirius slams the door in his face.

* * *

"So not only did you fail to find Preston Yaxley," Voldemort says dangerously, "but you also confronted and failed to subdue the Assistant."

 _Less of a confrontation, more of an ambush,_ the voice mutters and Harry bites his cheek to keep from saying anything.

"I'm afraid so, my lord," Lucius says, and both he and Harry cringe when Voldemort raises his wand.

Harry struggles to his feet when the post-Cruciatus seizure stops, feeling dizzy and sick, and forces himself to lift his gaze to meet Voldemort's. He doesn't feel any better for knowing Lucius has been through the same torture he has.

"Your mind is already fragile, Harry. I strongly advise you do better in future so that I have no reason to damage it further."

"Yes, my lord," he mutters, just barely respectful.

"You're dismissed. Get out of my sight."

He drops to his knees the moment he appears in his bedroom and vomits, but it's past midday and he hasn't eaten since dinner the night before, so he brings up hardly anything before he's just retching.

 _Footsteps!_ the voice cries. _Put the mask and chains away!_

Both are in his pocket but he Wishes them to Snape's grave then his bedroom door opens and Sirius rushed in and drops to his side.

"You alright, kid?"

Harry nods, sitting back on his heels and wiping his mouth with a shaky hand, Wishing the vomit away.

"Had a seizure," he says weakly.

"Come on, get up and get to bed. James, can you get him some water?"

"I'll go," Dumbledore offers, having followed the two men up when they heard the light thump over their heads. He disappears back downstairs as Sirius helps Harry to his feet. Harry shrugs off his robe then makes to climb into bed but Sirius stops him.

"You're supposed to get undressed first."

"Not in front of you I'm not."

Sirius raises his hands in surrender and backs out, pulling the door shut behind him.

"Where do you think he's been?" James asks quietly, face worried.

"I don't know."

When Dumbledore returns with a glass of water, Harry's already in his bed, curled on his left side and fast asleep with Kiwi clutched under his right arm. Dumbledore sets the water down on the small bedside cabinet then leaves with James while Sirius perches on the edge of the bed, reaching over to brush the hair from Harry's face. His eyes fall on Harry's left arm, lying against the bed, hand curled slightly. He brushes his fingers over the bare skin and Harry shifts slightly, drawing his arm away and gripping Kiwi tighter, but he doesn't stir.

"You been playing with my memory again, kid?" he murmurs, then sighs and heads back downstairs. Dumbledore is looking through the book the Assistant left them.

"This ritual seems simple enough."

"Are we sure it'll do what we think it will?" Sirius asks. "I still don't trust that bloke."

"You're right," James agrees. "We should probably just forget about the whole thing. We can't trust anything the Assistant says. The ritual will probably kill us both. We can just leave the Bond as it is."

"I can do some research myself," Dumbledore offers and Sirius nods.

"That's probably best."

James leans back in his seat, folding his arms over his chest, and doesn't say that he hopes the ritual doesn't work.


	66. Chapter 66

"James?"

James looks around at Harry, standing in the back doorway and looking out into the garden where James sits in a chair at their small garden table. Harry's got his two Pygmy Puffs in hand and he comes over to the table, setting them on it and taking a seat. Padfoot's on the floor and he shifts to rest his weight on Harry's bare feet.

"Did my mum have a sense of humour?"

James is surprised by the question; Harry's never asked him about Lily before, but he gives a small smile and nods.

"Didn't always match mine, but yeah, she knew how to have a laugh."

"So do you think she'd mind if I named the Pygmy Puff after her? The red one."

James' face is startled and Harry hopes he's not about to have one of his angry moments, but then he grins, sniggers, and bursts into laughter, and it's Harry's turn to look startled. Padfoot shuffles out from under the table and transforms, rising to slip onto a chair and reaching over to tickle the red Pygmy Puff.

"Now you have to," he says to Harry. "That's the first time he's laughed like that since he left Saint Mungo's."

"What about the blue one?" James asks when he's got past his laughter.

"I don't know. It's Ravenclaw blue so maybe Rowena."

"Lily and Rowena. It's a good pair."

* * *

"You're going out again, aren't you?"

It's late Friday night and Sirius looks into Harry's room to say goodnight, but Harry sits on the edge of his bed, fully dressed still, trainers on his feet. He nods and Sirius bites back a sigh. He steps into the room, going over and sitting down beside Harry.

"Do you know how to send a Patronus message?"

"No."

"Can wherever you're going wait ten minutes?"

Harry nods.

"I don't want to get into another argument," Sirius says when he's finished explaining it and Harry manages to send one across the hall to James' room, "so I'm not going to ask where you're going and I'm not going to bother telling you that you can't go because I realise there's no point, but promise me a few of things, kid."

"What?"

"Stay visible. I won't come looking for you but it makes me feel better to know I could."

Harry nods. "I will. What else?"

"Eat something, please? You skipped lunch and hardly touch breakfast or dinner. You've not been eating enough since you came home."

"I'm just not hungry much," he says. It's not a complete lie. He gets hungry, but when there's food in front of him all he can think about is the fact that eating means gaining weight. It's not that he thinks he needs to lose weight, because he knows he's never even bordered on fat, but every time he eats he remembers Yaxley's words to him about preferring boys with 'meat on them', and a little part of him thinks that if he eats as little as possible then maybe it won't ever happen again because he'll be too skinny for anyone to be attracted to.

"You need to eat, kid, or you'll waste away."

"I'll get something," he lies. "Is there anything else?"

"Yeah: be careful."

* * *

Snape's in his armchair and he jumps when Harry arrives at Spinner's End then relaxes when he sees who it is. Harry's got a couple of plastic bags full of groceries hanging from his hands and he goes through to the kitchen, setting them on the side. Snape follows.

"I wasn't really sure what you liked so I just got the basics," Harry tells him then takes a money pouch from his pocket and sets it down. "Also, I cleared out your Gringotts vault so you have money."

"Thank you. I appreciate you not leaving me to starve to death."

"I wouldn't do that."

"That's good to hear," Snape says, unpacking the bags. "I—this isn't a basic," he interrupts himself, pulling out a bottle of vodka. Harry shrugs.

"I broke your last one. I couldn't remember which type it was but that one was middle-priced so I figured it was alright."

"It's not a bad brand," Snape agrees. "Thank you. What did the Dark Lord call you for yesterday?"

"How did you know he called?" Harry asks, watching Snape put the food away.

"The tracking pendant. You were closer."

"That doesn't mean he called me."

"If you'd been in Hogsmeade or London it would have been colder, not warmer. It seems unlikely you'd have been anywhere else so I took an educated guess. I also hope you're keeping up Occlumency shields whenever you go to him; your efforts to hide me will do you no good if he reads the information straight from your mind."

"I am," Harry assures him. "The Assistant betrayed Voldemort. He made Fudge believe Voldemort's back and he's told Dumbledore stuff so now Voldemort wants me to find him."

Snape lowers the lid of his bread bin and turns to Harry. "He's tasked you with capturing the Assistant?"

Harry nods. "The Assistant came to my home the day I was initiated to ask if you were really dead and Voldemort thinks he might show up again so I have to stop him if he does." He pauses, then adds, "I think he betrayed Voldemort because of you. He seemed pretty upset when I told him you were dead and he gave me your wand and Death Eater mask. Were you friends?"

"No," Snape says with a frown, turning back to the groceries. "His betrayal is likely more to do with you than me."

Harry scoffs. "He got me in this mess."

"Then the timing may be simply coincidental, but his betrayal is good for the Order. The Assistant was impudent and annoying, but he was powerful and useful."

"Why was he annoying?"

"He spent half his time pulling ridiculous pranks on the other Death Eaters and treated the Cruciatus like a slap on the wrist. I expect his power was the only reason the Dark Lord ever put up with him; I don't imagine anyone among the ranks will miss him."

Harry stays for a little while, the two of them moving back into the sitting room, and tells Snape about the Animancupium on James, discovering that Snape already knows about the ritual but is surprised that Lucius does.

"Lucius was never one for the books. He's a social man; he prefers learning from others, but I suppose he must have heard about Animancupium and couldn't resist finding out more. I assume Potter's Binding will be transferred?"

Harry nods. "Dumbledore's checking that the ritual the Assistant gave us is the right one and not a trick."

"Who's taking it, Black or Lupin?"

Harry stares at him then realises, "You don't know."

"Know what?"

"Remus is dead."

"How?"

"He was killed when they took Sirius."

"I'm sorry," Snape says, and it even sounds sincere. Harry just nods. He doesn't want to talk about Lupin.

"I haven't figured out what you can do yet," he says, standing up, "but I'll bring more food in a week."

"I've had a thought about that," Snape says. "But I will need a little assistance to start."

"What is it?"

"Working for the Dark Lord brought me into contact with a few individuals who dealt in... questionable produce. I could never risk my teaching career getting involved but I know the trade. I can disguise myself, contact a few people, and work from there, but I'll need cauldrons and ingredients to start."

Harry sits back down. "You're going to become a drug dealer?"

"Supplier," Snape corrects. "Dealing would involve interacting with too many people."

_You know,_ the voice drawls, _it's really no wonder you ended up like you have—dead mother, drug dealing Death Eater daddy, godfather who spent most of your life in prison, and step-daddy who spent most of your life locked in a cellar. You were doomed from the start, really._

"Do you need my help disguising you when you go to see whoever it is you need to see?"

"There are perfectly normal ways to go about disguising oneself," Snape remarks. "Buy me some Polyjuice and I will be fine. I don't want you anywhere near the kind of people I'll be associating with anyway."

"I'm a Death Eater and you're worried about me meeting drug dealers?"

"Death Eaters answer to the Dark Lord; drug dealers only answer to themselves and they don't respond kindly to strangers. I'll have a hard enough time as it is."

"Alright. If you write a list of what you need I'll come get it in a few days and buy everything."

"Not everything I need can be bought at the apothecary in Diagon Alley."

"Then where? Knockturn Alley? That's fine," he says when Snape nods. "I can do that."

Snape doesn't question his assurance, but he leans forward in his chair. "You realise that if you keep leaving to come here then Black will get suspicious of how many times the Dark Lord is calling you? I assume that's where he thinks you are right now."

He shakes his head. "Voldemort made him forget I'd ever said yes. He doesn't know I'm a Death Eater. I just told him I was going out."

"Then what does he think happened and why the hell is allowing you to go off alone after what happened? Does he think the Dark Lord won't take you again?"

"He doesn't _allow_ me to do anything. He can't stop me going out if I want to. He's not happy about it, but he taught me how to send a Patronus message and I promised I wouldn't turn invisible so he can still track me. But he thinks Voldemort let us go under the condition I never stand against him, and he put the Word of Death Curse on Sirius to make sure I don't."

"Black believes that? _Dumbledore_ believes that?"

"I made him believe it."

Snape sits back, frowning. "It's a weak story. The Dark Lord doesn't just let people go, especially not powerful people prophesied to defeat him."

"Except he thinks Neville's the one in the prophecy, you told me."

"He says that but I doubt he truly believes it, and in either case you're still powerful and dangerous to him."

"Not anymore. I'm not risking Sirius."

Snape doesn't point out that he already has just by letting him live.

"Harry, have you talked with anyone about what happened while you were imprisoned?"

"I need to leave," Harry says, not looking at him. "I'll come by in a couple of days for that list."

"Harry—"

But he's already Disapparated.

* * *

"No!"

"James—"

"No! You're not doing it, Sirius!"

"James, lower you damn wand!"

"Lower the damn book!"

" _Expelliarmus!_ "

Harry watches from halfway down the stairs as James' wand leaps from his fingers and the thin leather-bound book leaps from Sirius', both items crossing the living room to Dumbledore, who snatches them both out of the air.

"I don't want it transferred," James says stubbornly.

"Why not?" Harry asks.

"Because I don't. It's my soul and my Bond, so it's my choice."

"James, Lucius locked you in a cellar for fourteen years," Sirius reminds him pointedly. "Abused you—carved that you're his _property_ into your skin. And he used you against us."

James glances away, rubbing at his collar and looking torn, but insists, "I don't want to."

"Only because the Bond is making you. This is what's best for you, James."

"Why should you decide that, Padfoot?"

"I'm not deciding anything, Prongs. I'm just saying. Lucius Malfoy is nothing but bad news. You _know_ that, you're just not thinking straight."

James glances between Sirius and Dumbledore, scowling unhappily. "I don't want to," he repeats sullenly.

"But you know you should," Dumbledore says kindly.

"You'll have to make me."

"Fine," Sirius says, drawing his wand. "The Assistant mentioned you didn't need to be conscious."

Surprise crosses James' face, then his expression turns angry and he lunges at Sirius, grabbing for his wand. Harry makes a Wish before the two men can start properly fighting and James slumps to the floor unconscious.

"He'll be better when you transfer the Bond, won't he?" Harry asks.

"Hope so," Sirius says. "Let's get on with it, Dumbledore. Sooner the better."

Dumbledore opens the book to the right page and Sirius crouches beside James, taking a small flip knife from his pocket and using it to cut both their palms then pressing their hands together. Dumbledore reads out the lengthy Latin ritual a line at a time and Sirius repeats it until on the final line, two ribbons of light spring from their hands, one bright red and one navy. The navy winds around James' arm while the red winds around Sirius', both glowing brightly for a moment before they fade away.

* * *

In the Riddle House, Lucius staggers suddenly, clutching at his chest and feeling like someone's torn away some vital part of him.

"Fuck," he swears, knowing instantly what it is and what's coming for him as a result. But as he reluctantly goes to find Voldemort, he feels, underneath the foreboding of pain to come, a spark of grief for what he's lost.

* * *

"That's it," Dumbledore says, closing the book. "It should be done."

"Wake him up then, kid," Sirius says as he heals the cuts on his and James' hands. Harry makes a Wish and James stirs, blinking his eyes open to stare up at Sirius.

"You alright, Prongs?"

James sits up, still staring at Sirius, who frowns, worried that something has gone wrong, but then James ducks his head.

"I'm sorry for attacking you, Sirius."

Sirius blinks, caught out by the submissiveness of his old friend. "Don't worry about it, Prongs. You alright? You know we transferred the Bond, don't you?"

"Yes. I'm fine."

"Good. How do you feel about Lucius?"

James frowns. "I'm not sure."

"I expect there will be lingering feelings you ought to discuss with you psychiatrist," Dumbledore remarks, "but if everything is alright, I have a few other things to discuss while I'm here."

"If it's bad news, go away and tell us some other day," Sirius tells him.

"Quite the opposite actually. I have a piece of good news, and a request for each of you."

"What's the news?" Harry asks.

"In the wake of Dolores Umbridge's confession and arrest, Henry Athelstan has repealed his decision regarding your expulsion."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that come September, you'll once again be a student of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."

"Brilliant!" Sirius cries and James grins. Harry just looks shocked.

"Wha- but... I mean... but I already took my OWLs!"

"And you'll join as a sixth year, provided you've achieved passing grades, which I don't doubt you have. In fact I do believe the results are being sent out tomorrow."

_I... have mixed feelings about this._

"What's the request?" James asks Dumbledore while Harry's still trying to wrap his head around it. He thought he'd never be going back to Hogwarts.

"I have two. One of you and Sirius, one of Harry. I was hoping that the two of you would take the position of Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts this September."

"Both of us?"

"Sirius, primarily, I will admit. I know you're uncomfortable around crowds, but I have no problem with you sharing classes if you feel up to it, James. Given your Bond, I realise there's no possibility of separating you, but I hadn't expected you to remain here alone if Sirius took the post anyway."

"We don't have to decide right now, do we?" Sirius says.

"Of course not, you can take some time to think it over."

"What's the request for me?" Harry asks.

"I'm sure you've realised that we're also in need of a new Potions master. I have a candidate in mind and I was hoping you'd accompany me when I go to ask him."

"Why?"

"I have a feeling I might struggle to persuade him to come out of retirement, but he's quite enamoured by celebrities and your presence would go a long way to convincing him."

"You think the crazy Boy Who Lived is going to convince him to take up the post?" Harry asks sceptically.

"Hey, you're not crazy, kid," Sirius retorts.

"Everyone thinks I am."

"I take it you haven't been reading the papers recently," Dumbledore says lightly. "Since they've admitted Voldemort's return, there hasn't been a single unpleasant remark about you. The truth of your claims has been verified; your sanity is no longer in question. So will you agree to accompany me this evening?"

Harry shrugs. "I suppose, if you really think it'll help."

* * *

When he finally gets past the shock of what he's learnt, he can't help the bubble of delighted laughter that escapes him.

"I'm going back to Hogwarts! You hear that, Hedwig? I'm going back to Hogwarts!"

_Indeed. But you realise that even getting pushed up a year, you won't survive to sit your NEWTs like you want to._

"I passed my OWLs early, I can do the same with my NEWTs," Harry replies, feeling too happy to let the voice put him down. He goes to his desk, pulling out some parchment, ink, and a quill and sitting down to write. For the first time since he was released from Voldemort he actually feels like talking to his friends, but he stops before he gets started, remembering Dumbledore's words about his position at Hogwarts depending on his OWL results, and decides to leave sharing his news until they come. Instead he lets Lily and Rowena out of their cage to roll around his desk for a while, watching them with a contented smile and feeling better than he has in weeks.

He's summoned that evening, a little after eight. He hates the worried look on James' face when he tells them he's going out again, but Sirius just reminds him that Dumbledore's coming by at eleven. Harry's not sure why they're going to see this new teacher so late, but Dumbledore avoids the question when he asks.

"Stand up, Harry."

He rises, looking through his mask at Voldemort. Lucius stands off to one side.

"Do you have anything to tell me?"

Harry glances at Lucius then back to Voldemort and takes a guess at what this is about.

"James' Bond has been transferred," Harry says slowly.

"How long have you known about it?"

"Since Wednesday. When I got home, they told me the Assistant told Dumbledore about it and Dumbledore came and confirmed it."

"What else has the Assistant told Dumbledore?"

"I don't know. They were both gone when I got back and Sirius and James only told me about the Bond."

"Presumably," he says, warning in his tone, "the Assistant has not surfaced to you since then or you would have brought him to me."

"Of course, my lord."

"If I may...?" Lucius murmurs, stepping forward, then, at a nod from Voldemort, says to Harry "Why can you not find him the same way you found Preston, with one of those arrows?"

"I tried, but either it doesn't work without his real name or he's invisible, which makes him untrackable even to me."

* * *

Stood in the corner of the room, hidden to all, the Assistant hurriedly lays a compulsion on Voldemort and Lucius to stop them mentioning his true name, and chides himself for being an idiot and not doing it earlier, realising how lucky he is to be in the room at the same moment as Harry. Not that he's there by accident; the information he has to give Dumbledore will quickly become out of date, and he needs something to do, so he spends time hanging around Riddle Manor finding out new information. And occasionally pulling minor pranks—nothing that will get him noticed, as he doesn't want Voldemort figuring out he's there and trapping him again, but things that bring a bit of excitement from an otherwise mostly boring task.

* * *

"Who has Potter been Bonded to?" Voldemort asks. Harry hesitates before reluctantly answering, "Sirius," and cringes when a cruel smile spreads across Voldemort's face as he realises what Harry already has.

"Then this is not a complete loss. Certainly I would prefer Potter was still under Lucius' command, but I hope you understand that I now hold both him and Black under my thumb. Betray me and you will lose them both. You're dismissed."

Harry briefly stops by Spinner's End to collect the list of ingredients that Snape's written for him and tell him the good news about getting back into Hogwarts. Snape actually manages a smile.

"That's good to hear," he says, then asks curiously, "Did Dumbledore mention if he's hired my replacement yet?"

"He's taking me to see someone later, but he didn't say what his name is."

"He's taking you?"

"Yeah, apparently this man like celebrities and Dumbledore thinks I'll help convince him to come out of retirement."

"Slughorn," Snape says. "He was my teacher and Dumbledore's probably right. He does like to get friendly with celebrity types, but I doubt that's the sole reason Dumbledore's taking you. Lily was a favourite student of his," Snape explains when Harry looks at him questioningly. "Dumbledore won't have forgotten that. I suppose he hasn't found a replacement Defence teacher yet."

"He asked Sirius and James," Harry answers, and Snape sits up so fast he knocks his book to the floor from where it rests in his lap. He doesn't even glance at it, staring at Harry.

"He's hiring _them?_ "

"They haven't said yes yet."

"That son of a bitch!" Snape swears, startling Harry. "Fifteen years I asked for that job and he gives it to _them?_ They're not even half as qualified as I am. Oh, it's a bloody good thing I can't see Dumbledore right now or I'd hex his kneecaps into pumpkin juice."


	67. Chapter 67

Dumbledore knocks on their door at precisely eleven o'clock that night.

"I believe you can Apparate?" he says to Harry as they stand in the living room, and Harry nods. "Then if you'll take my arm, I will guide you to our location. Just Apparate without a destination in mind and you will go where I do."

Harry nods and holds his arm firmly.

"On the count of three then... One... two... three..."

They reappear in the middle of a deserted village square that holds only an old war memorial and a few benches.

"Sir, can I ask you something?" Harry asks as Dumbledore leads him down the street.

"Of course."

"I know Snape wanted the Defence Against the Dark Arts job really badly; why did you never give it to him?"

"Because I considered Severus far too valuable to lose him after only a year, as is the unfortunate result of all my Defence teachers."

Harry pauses and Dumbledore stops walking as well when he notices. "James and Sirius are going to be okay, won't they? If they take the job?"

"They will be fine," Dumbledore assures him, but Harry doesn't quite believe it. "More of the Defence teachers have had to leave for entirely benign reasons than dangerous ones."

"Like dying or not actually being who you think they are or being evil bit- um. People."

Dumbledore smiles. "Quite. Shall we carry on? Incidentally," he says as they continue walking, "I had planned to offer him the position this coming year."

"Oh," Harry says then frowns. "But he died before you became Headmaster again," he points out, then realises, "You expected Umbridge to leave anyway."

"As I said, the position of Defence teacher is a precarious one."

"But she was headmistress."

"She may have called herself that, but Hogwarts never accepted it."

"Well yeah, everyone hated her."

"You misunderstand me, Harry. I was referring to the castle itself."

"How can... right, it's Hogwarts. It does stuff most places don't. Is it sentient?"

"To a certain degree, yes I believe so."

"I suppose that really shouldn't surprise me," Harry admits, thinking of the Room of Requirement.

Harry tenses when Dumbledore leads him to a house whose front door is hanging off. Dumbledore glances up and down the street, which is deserted but for the two of them, and draws his wand, asking quietly, "Can you see anyone inside?"

Harry scans the house with his magical eye and frowns at what he sees, nodding. "One man. It looks like he's destroyed the living room and—and he just turned himself into an armchair. That's weird."

"What did the man look like?"

"Fat, old but not as old as you, and bald, but with a moustache."

"Hmm, I suspected as much."

"Suspected what? Do you know him?"

"I do," Dumbledore says, saying nothing more and walking up the path towards the front door.

Inside the house's sitting room, a scene of total devastation meets their eyes. A grandfather clock lies splintered at their feet, its face cracked, its pendulum lying a little farther away like a dropped sword. A piano is on its side, its keys strewn across the floor. The wreckage of a fallen chandelier glitters nearby. Cushions lie deflated, feathers oozing from slashes in their sides; fragments of glass and china lay like powder over everything. Dumbledore raises his Lumos-lit wand so that its light is thrown upon the walls, where something darkly red and glutinous is spattered over the wallpaper.

"That one," Harry whispers to Dumbledore, nodding towards an over-stuffed armchair that's on its side. Dumbledore moves through the mess, stepping over detritus to reach the chair while Harry remains at the door, magical eye roaming around to keep an eye out for anyone he might have missed or anyone outside. Dumbledore very suddenly swoops and jabs his wand into the seat of the armchair, which yells, and a moment later the fat, bald man is standing in its place, rubbing at his large belly and squinting up at Dumbledore with an aggrieved expression.

"There was no need to stick the wand that hard," he says gruffly, getting to his feet. "What gave it away?"

"My dear Horace, if the Death Eaters had been here there would be a Dark Mark over the house. I also had a little assistance."

Slughorn glances over at Harry, squinting in the dim light. "Who's that?"

"Shall we clear up first?" Dumbledore suggests.

"Oh, yes, I suppose."

They stand side by side, Slughorn draws his wand, and they both wave them in identical sweeping motions and the destroyed room starts putting itself back together, broken pieces repairing themselves and returning to their proper places until the house is once more as it should be and a fire burns cheerfully in the fireplace.

"So, who—oho!" Slughorn cuts himself off as he looks at Harry. " _Oho!_ "

"This," Dumbledore says, stepping forward to make introductions, "is Harry Evans. Harry, this is an old colleague and friend of mine, Horace Slughorn."

"Nice to meet you, sir," Harry says, politely insincere.

"So this is how you plan to convince me?" Slughorn says, turning away from Harry with the air of a man who's resisting temptation. "Well the answer's still no."

"Are you quite sure? Well, do you mind if I use your bathroom before we leave?"

"Hmph. I suppose. Second door on the left."

Dumbledore thanks him and moves on. Harry and Slughorn stand in awkward silence for a moment until Slughorn says, "Don't think I don't know why he's brought you."

Harry says nothing and resists the urge to scowl when Slughorn's eyes look over his scar then linger on his magical eye before examining the rest of his face.

"You remind me of someone," Slughorn says after a moment. "Your parents, I suppose, but you don't look as much like your father as I'd expected."

_That's not entirely true, is it?_

"You taught my parents, didn't you?"

"Oh yes. Your mother was one of my favourites. Charming girl, vivacious. I always said she should have been in my house."

"What was your house?"

"I was Head of Slytherin."

"Oh. Is that—are you going to be the new Head of Slytherin as well then? Professor Dumbledore only mentioned about being Potions teacher."

"Oho, I'm not taking the post. Just because he brought you..."

Harry shrugs. "I was just wondering who my new Head of House will be."

Slughorn's eyes widen at that. "You're a Slytherin, are you? That is a surprise, I thought you'd have taken after your parents. It often stays in families you know. Like the Blacks—I nearly had them all, you know, but Sirius Black went to Gryffindor. You'd know that of course, being his godson," he says, looking at Harry now like he's a trophy he wants to lock in a cupboard. Harry fights not to edge away, uncomfortable under the man's gaze.

"I'm still not taking the post," Slughorn says when Dumbledore comes back from the bathroom, but Harry thinks he doesn't sound as sure now.

"Well, I'm sorry you don't want the job, Horace. Hogwarts would have been glad to see you back again. Our greatly increased security notwithstanding, you will always be welcome to visit, should you wish to. If you're ready, Harry."

Harry mutters a goodbye to Slughorn and follows Dumbledore out the room. They've just reached the front door when Slughorn calls, "Alright! Alright, I'll take it!"

"Wonderful," Dumbledore says, beaming. "Then, Horace, we shall see you on the first of September.

"Thank you, Harry," Dumbledore adds as they head back down the street.

"You're welcome. I didn't realise he was going to be the new Head of Slytherin too. I thought it was just for the Potions position."

"Oh, he's not," Dumbledore tells him. "No, Horace may have agreed to come out of retirement but I doubt it will be for long and I prefer to keep Heads of Houses for as long as possible. I've already found a replacement for that position."

"Who?"

"You'll find out with the rest of your house in September. Now, take my arm and I'll return you home."

"I know where my own house is," Harry points out. "You don't need to take me back."

"I don't mean to imply you don't, but when Apparating to the same location as another, it is always wise to go together to avoid attempting to Apparate into precisely the same spot. I'm also currently responsible for your safety and I will not be remiss in the duty by allowing you to return home unaccompanied."

Harry decides not to argue with him, realising it's quicker just to grab his arm and Disapparate.

Dumbledore doesn't leave when they got back home, but asks to impose on them for a little longer and requests to talk to Harry alone. They go into the kitchen and Dumbledore stands opposite Harry, his expression serious.

"Harry, this year I had hoped to give you private lessons to teach you a few things that would, I hope, assist you in the defeat of Lord Voldemort. Given the events of the past month and the curse on Sirius, I realise that to do so would be extremely dangerous if word got back to Voldemort."

"You think you can teach me something? I mean, no offence, I know you're a great wizard and everything but..."

"But you're substantially more powerful. I realise that, but power does not make up for experience, Harry. I may not have the magic that you do, but I have a great many years worth of knowledge."

"But it doesn't matter because you can't teach me."

"As I said, it would be dangerous to do so, however I feel you should have the choice on whether to accept the lessons or not. Were you to agree, I would take every step possible to protect you and Sirius. I have absolutely no wish to bring about his death."

"The prophecy says I'm the only one that can stop him, though," Harry says quietly.

"Prophecies are neither absolute nor so easily interpreted."

"That one seemed pretty obvious. Saying about either of us dying at the hand of the other."

"Divination is the ficklest of all magical subjects," Dumbledore says. "Even that which seems obvious can sometimes mean something else entirely and not become clear until after the time has passed."

"I want him dead though," Harry says, so quiet it's almost a whisper because even though they're alone he has this spark of fear that somehow Voldemort will hear him and Sirius will die. He keeps his magical eye looking through the wall at his godfather, currently in dog form with his head in James' lap. "I don't want Sirius to die, but I want Voldemort dead."

"You have the rest of the summer to consider my offer," Dumbledore tells him. "This is not a decision that should be made in haste. So thank you once more for your assistance this evening and a good night to you."

"Sir, can I ask you something before you go?"

"Of course, my boy."

"You told me before that I can't just kill Voldemort, that he's done things to himself that even my unique brand of magic can't overcome. If that's true, what would happen if I tried to kill him?"

Dumbledore's expression is sadly serious as he answers. "It is my belief that he would revert to the bodiless form he had before. While this would stop his current reign of terror," he continues when Harry opens his mouth to say something, "it would not be permanent and it would make finding him quite difficult when we were able to finally dispense with him properly. It would also not save your godfather from the Word of Death Curse on him."

Harry's shoulders slump and he sighs.

"I am sorry, my boy. But I sincerely believe that what I hope to teach you this year, or to learn myself if you decide not to, will enable him to be defeated once and for all."

Harry looks up without cheer. "There's just going to be a lot of people dying and getting hurt before then."

* * *

Padfoot wakes Harry the next morning by jumping on his bed and sticking his nose in Harry's ear. Harry shoves at him, pulling the covers over his head.

"Go 'way," he says, voice muffled under the covers.

"You don't want to see your OWL results then?" James' voice says and Harry tosses his covers back, burying Padfoot in his rush to scramble out of bed and snatch the envelope from James' hand, hands trembling as he slits it open and takes two pieces of parchment from inside.

_ORDINARY WIZARDING LEVEL RESULTS_

_Pass Grades:_  
Outstanding (O)  
Exceeds Expectations (E)  
Acceptable (A)

 _Fail Grades:_  
Poor (P)  
Dreadful (D)  
Troll (T)

 _Harry Evans has achieved:_  
Ancient Runes: O  
Arithmancy: A  
Astronomy: A  
Charms: O  
Defence Against the Dark Arts: O  
Herbology: A  
History of Magic: O  
Potions: E  
Transfiguration: E

"I passed everything! Four Os, two Es, and three As."

Sirius hugs him from behind, grinning broadly and rubbing his hair affectionately.

"Nice work, kid. Knew you would."

"What's the other bit say?" James asks, pointing to the second piece of parchment Harry held.

"Other bit?" Sirius repeats. "What more is there?"

It's a letter. Harry barely glances at it when he first pulls it out, assuming it's just a standard 'hi, here's your results, congratulations you're not a failure' kind of letter, but he reads it through now.

"It's a recommendation for advanced NEWT classes," he says, "for History of Magic and Ancient Runes."

Sirius whistles. "Wow."

"I've never heard of advanced NEWT classes."

"Not a lot of people get in them," James says. "They're fast track classes recommended for people who pass the OWLs with ridiculously high scores and lets them sit the NEWT early. Lily took one in Charms."

Harry looks back down at the letter, some unnamed emotion filling his chest at that. It might not be the same class, but this is still something else that connects him to his mother. He feels a grin spread across his face and even the voice's snide comment can't bring his mood down.

_Well at least you'll die with two NEWTs._

He finally writes to his friends, penning lengthy letters that he can't keep the joy out of as he mentions his OWLs and the fact that he's coming back to Hogwarts. He refrains from detailing the OWL results in most of them, mentioning only how many of each grade he got, but he specifies them in his letters to Hermione and Draco, and mentions to them the advanced NEWT classes he's been recommended for. He debates over whose to send first but eventually picks Hermione's as she's the only one of his friends without access to an owl herself.

Draco's eagle owl arrives later that day baring a letter for Harry. He passed all but his Care of Magical Creatures exam, which he claims is no great loss but blames on Hagrid's poor teaching anyway. He also says Harry has an open invitation to come over to the Manor at any time and Harry immediately asks Sirius if he can go visit him.

"You mean you're actually asking us this time?" James says with mock surprise.

"And asking nicely too," Sirius remarks.

"We should say no," James muses, "seeing as he's asking so nicely."

"I'll just go anyway."

"Thought you would," Sirius says dryly. "Go on. Make sure Narcissa hears how many OWLs you got so she knows my godson's cleverer than her kid."

When Harry's gone, Sirius says to James, "You're a lot more relaxed since we did the Bond transfer."

James shrugs. "It makes sense. Not being bonded to a scumbag Death Eater or separated from my—"

"Please don't call me master," Sirius interrupts. "That would be creepy."

"It feels kind of natural to me," James admits. "But I'll try not to."

Sirius frowns then. "Hang on, I just told you not to. Doesn't that make it an order?"

"Master," James says experimentally. "I think it was a request rather than an order."

Sirius nods, glancing away and drumming his fingers then looking back at him and admitting, "It kind of felt right to hear you say it. That's fucked up, isn't it?"

"I don't know. It's the Bond, I guess."

"Try not to say it anyway. I don't want it to make me feel like I'm better than you. If I start getting commanding you have my permission to slap me until I snap out of it. We're friends, not master and slave."

* * *

"Well?" Draco demands the moment he greets Harry at the front door of Malfoy Manor. "What did you get in your OWLs?"

"Hello to you too, Draco," he says good-naturedly, but digs out the OWL letter from his pocket and shows it to him.

"Not bad," Draco murmurs, reading it.

"Did better than you, but never mind that. Read the letter that came."

Draco does so, his jaw dropping. "You're taking advanced classes?!"

"I've been recommended."

"Congratulations," says a new voice and Harry turns to see Narcissa stepping out of a room. She gives him a polite smile. "Hello, Harry."

"Hello, Mrs Mal- ow," he says when Draco steps on his foot. "Sorry, I mean, Ms Black."

Narcissa gives a tight smile. "Which subject have you been recommended for advanced classes?"

"History of Magic and Ancient Runes."

Narcissa doesn't manage to hide her impressed look. "You must be very bright indeed. Might I ask where you'll be attending school now?"

"Oh, I've been allowed back to Hogwarts. The—"

"You didn't tell me that!" Draco interrupts. "Why am I only hearing this now?"

"Because I only found out yesterday and I knew the OWL results were coming today so I didn't bother writing a letter then."

"Will you be staying for dinner?" Narcissa asks.

"Uh..."

"Yes," Draco answers and Narcissa nods.

"I'll let Pippin know. I'm sure you boys have things you'd rather be doing, so if you'll excuse me..."

"Who's Pippin?" Harry asks as Narcissa walks off.

"Our new house elf," Draco tells him, handing the letter back. "Mother found out Dobby knew about James ever since the beginning so she sold him for Pippin and a hundred galleons. It's thievery really—you can buy an elf for that much, but the guy offered it so we weren't going to argue. So are you coming back to Hogwarts as a sixth year rather than fifth?"

"Yup."

"Excellent." They get up to Draco's room and he turns to Harry, asking quietly, "How you doing?"

"I'm alright."

Draco doesn't look convinced. "You don't look like you've been sleeping much. Or eating."

Harry shrugs. "Nightmares. Not much to be done about it, though. I should have brought my broom; we could have gone flying."

"I've still got my old Comet two-sixty, or you can come on mine again."

"Let's do that. I liked flying with you."

* * *

"I like your mother," Harry says to Draco after dinner that evening. It's true. She's polite, friendly, and best of all manages to keep up dinner table conversation without it ever becoming awkward like he thought it would be. Any mention he makes of Sirius or James passes without comment or even a distasteful sneer like Sirius makes whenever she's mentioned around him. She just reacts as if they're nothing more to her than the parental figures of her son's boyfriend. Even the voice in his head approves of her.

"I'm pretty sure she likes you too," Draco tells him. "But it's hard to tell sometimes because she's infuriatingly polite even to people she doesn't like."

Harry smiles, then says, "I have to go."

Draco pouts. "It's not that late. Can't you stay another hour?"

Harry shakes his head, not quite meeting his gaze and rubbing at his arm. Draco notices and the pout fades to an expression of worry.

"He's calling you."

Harry just nods.

"Will you come back here afterwards? Just briefly, so I know you're alright."

"Okay."

Draco leans forward, kissing his cheek, and Harry turns his head to make their mouths meet instead. When they pull apart, Draco asks hesitantly, "Will you see my father there?"

"I don't know. Probably. He's usually there."

"Can you give him these?" he asks, going to his desk and picking up the envelope holding his OWL results. "I want him to know I did well."

Harry takes them, slipping them into his pocket. "I will. See you later."


	68. Chapter 68

Harry says goodbye to Narcissa and Disapparates when he's left the Manor grounds, reappearing at Spinner's End first so he can take a moment to Wish his black robes and his mask to him. Snape isn't in the living room when he arrives, but he appears on the stairs just as Harry's about to leave. Harry digs in his pocket for his own OWL results, putting them on the rickety table and then Disapparating.

Mr and Mrs Marion are a married couple who work together for the International Trading Standards Body, Spanish Division. Voldemort wants them killed so they can be replaced by someone more open to assisting in the smuggle of illegal goods. They're a middle-aged couple, both quite chubby and in the middle of sharing a bottle of brandy and a box of chocolates when Lucius and Harry break into the house. The woman screams and the man tells her to run for the floo, but Lucius points his wand at the fireplace and the pot of floo powder explodes.

"The Dark Lord sends his regards," Lucius drawls, then disarms the man. "Are you going to just stand there?" he says to Harry.

"You were doing perfectly fine by yourself," Harry replies.

"I'm sure the Dark Lord will be glad to hear of your inaction."

Harry scowls, but waves his hand and ropes appear to bind themselves around the couple and gags stick in their mouths, silencing their shouts for help.

Lucius isn't impressed. "Well, we may as well split the work. Which do you want to kill?"

He doesn't want to kill either of them. The couple have rolled themselves so they can press their foreheads together, both of them crying silently. He thinks it's kind of pitiful, but at the same time heart-warming that even when they're about to die, their only interest is in seeking comfort in each other.

He flinches when Lucius starts torturing the woman, her screams only slightly muffled by the gag in her mouth. Her husband starts crying, calling her name and struggling like he has any hope of helping her.

"Is that necessary?" Harry asks when Lucius lowers his wand.

"Of course not, but the Dark Lord doesn't begrudge us our fun. Have a go; you'll find it's quite satisfying to inflict pain you've endured."

"I only want to inflict pain on the people that did it to me, and he only said we had to kill them."

"You're a weak child," Lucius sneers. "Then don't participate, but you'll not interfere with my fun."

_He might be right, you know,_ the voice remarks as Lucius turns his wand on the couple again. _You might feel better to inflict pain on others. It's not like we can exact revenge on our abusers; we could at least ease the pain by knowing someone else feels what we did._

"Kill them," Lucius says when he's done. Harry stands to one side, fists clenched and shaking as he fights the urge to make Lucius stop. He makes himself think of Sirius and James, repeating over and over in his mind that he's doing it all for them, to keep them safe. At Lucius' words, he doesn't even glance at the couple, just makes a Wish and hears the joint snap of their necks breaking.

"You're efficient," Lucius says with the disdainful grace of someone forced to compliment an idiot. "I'll give you that much. Send up the mark then we can leave."

"I have something to give you before we go," Harry says.

"I can't see what you could possibly have that I want."

"Your son's OWL results," he says, pulling from his pocket and holding them out. "He asked me to give you them."

Lucius snatches the envelope from him, eyes cold. "You told Draco you joined the ranks?"

"Voldemort only—"

" _Don't call him that!_ " Lucius snarls so violently that Harry jumps. "He is the Dark Lord. You do not refer to him by name."

Harry just nods, a little scared by the man's fury. Lucius breathes deeply through his nose, letting it out slowly before he speaks again. "The Dark Lord may have only specified to not tell the Order of the Phoenix of your position, but if you had half a brain in your head you'd realise you should keep your mouth shut about it to everyone."

"Draco can keep a secret."

"That," Lucius bites with disdainful fury, "is beside the point. The Dark Lord ordered you to keep it quiet, so you'll keep it quiet."

"So what, you want me to memory charm Draco?"

If the outburst a moment before had been scary, the quiet fury Lucius has now is terrifying. "If you _ever_ mess with my son's memory I will have you back in chains in the time it'll take the Dark Lord to dispose of your beloved godfather."

* * *

"Congrat-" Snape begins when Harry appears, only to break off when he staggers, drops to his knees and wraps his arms around himself, trembling from head to foot and hyperventilating. Snape drops the OWL results, slipping off his chair to drop down in front of Harry.

"I—I didn't—"

"Harry, just breathe," Snape says calmly. "You're safe now, it's over. Just breathe slowly."

"I k-k-killed—I kill-" His breath catches and he gasps, tears spilling down his cheeks.

"It's alright, Harry, it's over. You need to calm down, alright? Focus on breathing for now."

It takes a while, but eventually Harry calms down enough that he's not hyperventilating. He still shakes though, hands flat on the floor, head bowed, Snape still knelt before him.

"I killed them."

"Killed who?"

"I don't know. I can't remember their names."

"Why did you kill them?"

"Because... because... he told me to."

"Why did he want them dead?"

"Does it matter?" he asks hollowly. "They're dead. I killed them. And I... I stood there and watched Lucius torture them first and I didn't stop it."

"You did what you had to, Harry."

Anger rises in him at that, burning hot and sudden, and he lashes out at Snape, shoving him in the chest with both hands. "That doesn't make it any better! I killed them! I took away their lives!"

Snape grabs his wrists, firm but not restrictive, grip loose enough Harry could pull away if he tried, and his gaze is unforgiving as he meets Harry's. "And you will take more. You will kill and torture and do horrible things that will give you nightmares for the rest of your life, but it's what you have to do."

Harry draws his hands away, wrapping his arms around himself and staring at Snape. "Why are you saying that?" he asks in a small voice.

"Would you prefer I lied to you as I've done your whole life?"

"I..."

"You have people who will comfort you and do it a damn sight better than me. You can go home and know that Black and Potter will smile and hug you, and for a while you can tell yourself everything's fine, but the faces of the people you've killed will haunt you. I know they will because the people I've killed still haunt me. I will not lie to you about this, Harry. I'm not going to tell you that everything's going to be okay because it's not, and if you don't have someone to remind you of that then it'll be that much worse when you realise it. The people whose lives you took today are only the beginning, but you chose to put Sirius Black's life before theirs and you have to live with that."

"I've got no right," he says, head down, eyes averted. "Why should his life be worth more than theirs? I'm not God, I shouldn't choose that."

"In the grand scheme of life, he's probably not worth any more or less than them, but to you he is. Do you think someone else in your position would choose any differently?"

"Yes," he answers immediately. "Good people—"

"Bollocks," Snape interrupts. "Whatever good people you're thinking off right now—if you told them to choose between the death of a loved one and the death of a stranger, I can guarantee you they will always kill the stranger. They might feel bad afterwards, they might have nightmares and end up in therapy for months, but they will still rather their loved one live. That's how people work."

"It's not fair," he whispers. "It's not fair, I never asked for this. I didn't want any of this."

"But it's what you've got and you can't change that. You'll do as the Dark Lord asks and it will haunt you, but Sirius Black will live."

"What if I can't? What if it's too much?"

"Then Black dies," Snape says simply.

"I don't want him to die."

"Then do as the Dark Lord orders." He reaches and takes Harry's chin in hand, gently lifting his head to look at him. "You have your options, Harry. Either you obey the Dark Lord, or Black dies. They're poor options but it's what you've got. You have to decide how much Sirius Black's life is worth."

* * *

Harry Apparates back to Malfoy Manor invisible, just in case Narcissa happens to be in Draco's room, but he's alone, stood by the window and looking out onto the gardens, and he jumps when Harry appears then gives a relieved smile.

"You're... are you alright?"

"Your father doesn't like me," he says instead of answering.

"What makes you say that?"

"He's not exactly subtle about it. He disapproves of us going out."

Draco looks at him for a moment and Harry wonders just how important his father's approval is, but Draco reaches out and takes his hands. "Don't worry about him. He doesn't get to say who I can and can't date."

"I should go."

Draco tightens his grip when Harry tries to pull his hands away. "Why did the Dark Lord—"

Harry jerks his hand up and covers Draco's mouth, looking at him with terrified eyes. "Don't. Please, Draco, don't ask me that."

Draco tries to tug Harry's hand away but Harry presses harder. "Promise me. Promise me you won't ask about that, _ever_."

Draco nods and Harry lets him tug his hand down. "I promise."

"Thought you might have decided to stay the night," Sirius teases lightly when Harry gets home, but it doesn't quite hide the worry in his eyes. James doesn't even bother trying.

"I'd tell you if I did," he promises them. "I'm going to bed. See you in the morning."

"G'night, kid."

Upstairs he drops a handful of food into Lily and Rowena's cage, tosses some treats into Hedwig's for when she gets back from delivering letters, then gets changed and climbs into bed, curling up with Kiwi pulled against his chest, watching Lily and Rowena devour their food, Snape's words echoing in his head. The voice agrees with Snape; he made his choice and he'll have to do what he must to protect Sirius, but Harry can't help wondering: what _is_ Sirius' life worth and is it really his right to decide?

But Snape's right about one thing—his nightmares that night aren't solely about his own time at the mercy of the Death Eaters.

* * *

He sneaks a trip to Diagon Alley and Knockturn Alley under the disguise of an adult to purchase everything on the list Snape gave him. It includes Polyjuice Potion and when he delivers it all, Snape sends him up the small village shop to steal hairs from the Muggle man who runs it.

"You're really going to become a drug dealer."

"Supplier. Assuming my contact doesn't shoot me when he first sees me. These kinds of people are notoriously untrustworthy of strangers."

"Shoot you? With a gun?"

"The man I'm going to doesn't deal solely in magical drugs and he recognises the use of Muggle weaponry."

He also goes to a bookshop in Knockturn Alley while he's there and searches for something on demons. He finds a couple of thick, old books that look promising, but when he reads them he finds nothing inside that tells him how to break a deal with a demon. However he does learn of a powder called goofer dust and a herb called devil's shoestring that are able to keep back hellhounds and learns that salt does the same to demons. He's sceptical that something so simple as a circle of salt can hold back a demon, but with less than two years left to live, he's willing to try anything.

Harry's summoned three more times over the next two and a half weeks. He has to force a kidnapped man to reveal details about the security on the Muggle Prime Minister; he's involved in killing Igor Karkaroff, who impressively managed to avoid capture for so long; and he kills one more person, a woman who's been making public speeches encouraging people to stand against Voldemort. He has to torture her first and let her know who he is so Voldemort can see the hope die in her eyes when she sees that the Boy Who Lived stands at the Dark Lord's side.

Sirius and James accept the Defence Against the Dark Arts post. Harry smiles and tells them he's happy for them; he doesn't tell them he's scared of what'll happen to make them lose the job in a year's time.

* * *

"Tell me it's worth it."

_It's worth it._

"Is it?"

_If you're going to doubt me, why ask? You never care for my opinion anyway._

Harry has no response to that. He sits at his desk, a book open in front of him, but he can't concentrate on it. He's got letters from his friends that he hasn't responded to yet—Hermione's been recommended for advanced NEWT Arithmancy, which she's chuffed about—but he doesn't know what he's supposed to say to them. He's tired but his dreams are full of screams and he can't stand the thought of trying to sleep.

_It's worth it. You love Sirius. You're extremely fond of James. You don't want them to die. These peoples' lives are worth it to keep them safe. If you didn't believe that, you would have cracked the first time you had to kill someone._

"You didn't want me to join," he points out. He's not worried about being overheard; after the third time he woke up screaming loud enough to wake James and Sirius too, he put up permanent Silencing Charms on his room. Only his pets are there to listen to him talk to himself.

_That's because you didn't, and because our esteemed lord and master is a bully and we hate bullies._

"I'm a bully now."

_Bullies cause misery and suffering simply because they can; we're just doing what we have to. We're protecting ourselves and what's important to us and that is something I agree with whole-heartedly._

"What's important to _me_. You don't care about Sirius and James. You don't care about anyone."

_I care about you._

"You sound like Snape."

_That's insulting. Your daddy might say he cares and maybe he's even done a few things to make up for his poor parenting, but I am heavily invested in your well-being and always have been. For the time being, obeying the Dark Lord is good for your well-being. Losing Sirius and James would likely shatter your already fragile mind even further, as would much more torture._

"I'd have thought that's good for you. I'd end up with more voices in my head. You'd have friends to keep you company."

_I don't need friends. I am the only voice that needs to live inside your head._

* * *

Late afternoon on the twenty-ninth of July, the Assistant Apparates into the cave in the mountain over Hogsmeade. He sets down a bag of food—bread, pre-cooked chicken, several bottles of water—and first aid supplies, and a large blanket then puts up a magical barrier at the front of the cage that will stop anyone walking in, a Compulsion Charm to stop people from wanting to even approach the cave, and a Silencing Charm. He strips off his clothes, dumping them with the food and blanket, then moves further in, passing the halfway point and turning. He waves both hands and a row of two inch thick solid steel bars spring out of the rock to trap him inside. He wraps his hands around them and shakes, testing them, then steps aside, conjures a rock the size of himself and magically tosses it at the bars. They rattle and clang but hold, and he vanishes the rock, stepping further towards the back of the cave, hesitating, then waving his hand once more and conjuring a coating of silver over the bars. He shudders, but resists the urge to vanish it again, and sits down to wait.

* * *

Only when Dumbledore's halfway back down the mountain does he realise he's still holding the message he planned to leave for the Assistant and he frowns, wondering if old age is finally getting to him. He turns and heads back up again, but this time he notices it—the push on his mind, the little whisper that says _turn back, go away, you don't want to be here_. He stops, thinking for a moment, then draws his wand and pushes forward, fighting the impulse but approaching the cave cautiously. When he reaches it, he's not really surprised to find more protections in the form of a magical barrier, but he doesn't try to get past it, instead tucking his wand away as he looks through. At the back of the cave, a large brown wolf stands behind a set of silver-coated bars, teeth bared in a drooling snarl as its amber eyes stare back at him, as close to the bars as it dares to get. Dumbledore lifts a hand and taps two fingers to his head in a salute, smiling slightly, and turns away, leaving the wolf to snap and snarl uselessly behind the bars.

* * *

The Assistant wakes with a groan, body full of aches and pains and feeling the unpleasant stickiness of dried blood on his skin. He lies for a moment, unwilling to move despite the chill that's seeping into skin, but then he hears a polite cough of the sort designed to catch someone's attention and he opens his eyes, lifting his head to look towards the front of the cave.

"I thought you might appreciate something to eat and drink," says Dumbledore. "But I'm glad to say your protections are proving quite resilient."

The Assistant pushes himself up into a sitting position, noting the scratches along his chest and the shallow bite on his left calf as he does, and summons the blanket and a bottle of water to him, wrapping the blanket around himself before waving a hand to dispel the bars and the protections on the cave, then opening the water as Dumbledore steps forward. He carries a covered bowl and a thermos mug.

"I did bring my own food," the Assistant points out, "but thank you."

"Yes, you appear to be quite prepared," Dumbledore remarks, noticing the first aid supplies.

"Not my first time as a werewolf. Just wish I'd found someone to get the Wolfsbane from. Normally I'd go to Severus, but... well. What's in the bowl?"

"Chicken soup."

"Hot?"

"Of course."

"You're a godsend, Albus."

The Assistant takes the food and a proffered spoon with a murmured thanks and summons his own food supplies, taking out the loaf of bread and breaking a chunk off to dip in the soup. To his surprise, Dumbledore draws his wand and flicks it, conjuring a squishy purple armchair and settling in it to face him.

"You look to have some interesting stories to tell," he remarks. The Assistant looks up, confused, then realises Dumbledore's eying the scars along his body, the blanket pushed down to his waist so he can manoeuvre his hands easily without flashing himself.

"Not really," the Assistant tells him, holding the bowl in one hand and using the other to gesture to the parallel scars along his torso, underneath a few fresh wounds inflicted upon himself during the night. "Those were Remus. These," he says, indicating the burn scars down his sides, "came from Voldemort when he first captured me after his resurrection. Everything else came from my Master."

"You Master seems like an unpleasant man."

The Assistant shrugs, taking up the soup again. "The Bond hits both parties. It's not unusual for the power to go to the Master's head. It can be a little worse in my case because he knew I've got more magical power than him, so he needed to reassure himself that he was the one in control. That, and I've got a rebellious streak a mile wide so people like to try and rectify my behaviour. But what are you doing here anyway? Somehow I doubt you ventured all the way here just to bring me soup and ask about my scars."

"I came last night to leave you a message, but obviously found myself unable to."

"What message? Have you been getting my reports on Voldemort's activities by the way?"

"I have, they're extremely useful, thank you. I hope you're being careful."

"Your concern is touching, Albus. I'm fine. What did you come for last night?"

"I was hoping you'd assist me with something. Sirius and James are quite worried about Harry. He's been leaving the house regularly—alone—and they're concerned. I—"

"No."

Dumbledore raises a questioning eyebrow.

"I'll give you info on Voldemort, help you out with other shit, but I'm not spying on the kid for you, Albus."

"What makes you think that was what I had to ask?"

"If it's not, then by all means carry on."

Dumbledore says nothing.

"I thought so. Harry's entitled to his privacy."

"He's clearly troubled. We're simply worried about him."

"Of course he's troubled, he spent over a week at the Death Eaters' mercies. He's not going to get over that easily."

"At your mercy."

The Assistant looks up, waving his spoon at Dumbledore. "I never laid a hand on him."

"But you didn't stop the others."

"I did what I could, Albus. Is this the real reason you came here, to guilt me about Harry, about Severus, even Remus and Sirius?"

"Do you feel guilty?"

The Assistant says nothing for a moment. He scoops a spoonful of soup, swallowing it down before he answers, "No. I acknowledge that I've done wrong by them, but what I've done in this timeline doesn't even come close to the worst atrocities I've committed throughout my existence."

"Such as killing your father?"

The Assistant doesn't look up at that. "I never said I killed him, just that I was responsible for his death. But no, that's not the worst thing I've ever done."

"Then what is?"

"You don't want me to answer that, Albus."

* * *

"What did he make you do this time?"

Harry moves over to the stool in Snape's small lab, set up in the second bedroom, sitting on it and watching Snape mix a sludge coloured potion in a small cauldron. "Nothing. He didn't summon me."

"Then why are you here?"

Harry shrugs, pointedly not looking up from the cauldron when Snape glances over at him.

"Where do Black and Potter think you are?"

"At Draco's."

"Why aren't you?"

He shrugs again. "What are you making?"

Snape looks at him a moment longer before looking back down. "A memory restorative."

Harry frowns. "That's not a drug."

"No, it's for me. I'm missing memories from the time I spent prisoner; I want to know what they are."

"How do you know you're missing memories if they're missing?"

"I am a skilled Occlumens; I know my own mind well, and as a spy I learned to pay close attention to the details of my memories. Whoever wiped my memory did a poor job of it; if they'd done it properly, I wouldn't know and this potion wouldn't help anyway."

"Oh. Can I help?"

Snape nods towards a jar holding a dragon claw. "Crush that to a fine powder."

When they're done, the potion is radioactive green and Harry watches Snape drink it down, grimacing at the taste and setting down the vial he drank from then leaning against the workbench, eyes drifting out of focus.

"Did it work?"

Snape blinks slowly then looks down at him and Harry's surprised to see pity amidst the anger building in his gaze. "Yes. It was when Nott—"

"No!" Harry turns away. "I don't care, I'm not listening!"

"Harry, you need to—"

But Harry Disapparates before he can finish.


	69. Chapter 69

Sirius and James take Harry out for dinner on his birthday. He'd rather stay in but he knows they're worried about him and he's determined to do what he can to keep them happy, so he goes out, forces a few smiles, makes himself eat enough to erase the concern on Sirius' face even though it makes him feel sick, and is thankful to get home without his Mark burning.

He gives a genuine smile the next day when his Hogwarts letter and booklist arrives. It's definitive proof that he's well and truly a student again. He gets an invite from Draco to accompany him and Narcissa to Diagon Alley, but James and Sirius insist on taking him.

He's in Madam Malkin's getting fitted for some new robes when he hears the door go and instinctively swivels his eye to see who's walked in. When he sees Hermione and Neville with Neville's Grandmother, his stomach sinks. He doesn't want to see them. He doesn't _deserve_ to see them. How can he stand before them and claim to be their friend when he's got a Dark Mark on his arm?

_Your self-pity is beginning to grow wearisome. Haven't we already established that you're doing what you must? Why do you insist on punishing yourself for it? Didn't we already take our punishment when they tortured us?_

"Harry!"

He forces a smile on his face as they approach. "Hey, Hermione, Neville."

"It's so good to see you!" Hermione cries. "How are you?"

He shrugs then winces when the movement causes Madam Malkin to misplace a pin and stick him with it. "Sorry," he says to her, then to Hermione and Neville, "I'm okay. You?"

"Not bad," Neville answers. "Congratulations on the advanced NEWT classes."

"Thanks. I didn't even know about them until I got the letter. Did you?" he asks Hermione.

"Yes, Professor McGonagall mentioned them in my career meeting."

"I guess I missed out on that by skipping a year."

_Hardly matters, does it? The only career for you is as some hell demon's little bitch._

He, Sirius, and James join them for the rest of their shopping until the end when Hermione and Neville go into Weasley Wizard Wheezes. It's busy and as he's seen it all before he decides to pass, saying goodbye outside then heading back to the Leaky Cauldron with Sirius and James to floo home.

* * *

A week later he kneels with Bellatrix and Lucius when Voldemort says something that makes Harry's breath catch.

"I need to send a message to Marcus Fleetwood."

Harry snaps his head up because he's familiar enough with that tone of voice now to know what it means.

"He lives near a Muggle family. I want you to kill them all."

"But not Marcus, right?" Harry asks, then hurriedly adds, "My lord."

"If he tries to interfere, stop him, but don't kill him."

"Yes, my lord," he murmurs, hoping that that includes Tyler but not daring to ask just in case Voldemort doesn't even know Tyler exists. He doesn't want to be responsible for informing Voldemort that Marcus Fleetwood has an adopted son that could just as easily be used to send a message. His stomach is already twisting with guilt because he knows who the Muggle family they're going to kill is.

He's wishes he were wrong, but half an hour later he stands in the large dining room of the Bennett family home, across the street from Tyler's house and next door to Alex Stone. Harry puts up protections to stop them from being noticed, Wishing for the house to remain undisturbed while they're there.

As well as Charlie and Mr and Mrs Bennett, there's an extremely old man in a wheelchair who's Mrs Bennett's grandfather. He's the only one to die quickly, as Bellatrix declares there's no fun torturing someone so old and frail. But there's also a teenage boy there who, after a while, Harry recognises as Johnny, the boy who started a fight with him, Tyler, and Draco the summer before his third year.

Lucius kills Mrs Bennett with a curse that makes her bleed from every orifice. It takes her ten minutes to die and looks painful. Mr Bennett clings to his wife and pleads for them to stop. Harry thinks he might be sick.

Charlie screams when Lucius turns his wand on her. "DON'T!" she shrieks. "Please, I'm pregnant! Don't kill my baby!"

Her father and Johnny clearly didn't know this, the shock evident on their faces. Behind his mask, Lucius' lip curls. "Do you think we care for the Muggle filth you carry?"

"Is it mine?" Johnny asks Charlie, who nods, then cries out when Bellatrix grabs her hair and drags her forwards, tossing her to the floor.

"Leave her alone!" Johnny shouts, and Lucius hits him with a Blasting Hex, knocking him back.

"Cissy told me the spell for performing abortions once," Bellatrix says with a grin, getting to her knees and bending over the girl. "I've never used it so I'll probably mess up and kill you in the process. I'll tell you what," she says, leaning down so her face is mere inches from Charlie's, "if you survive this, I'll let you live. How's that?"

Charlie just sobs.

Lucius uses a Bone Breaking Hex on Johnny and Mr Bennett's legs and arms to stop them trying to interfere. Mr Bennett begs and Johnny shouts obscenities at Bellatrix until Harry can't stand it and Wishes him silent.

"It's your turn next," Lucius says to Harry as Bellatrix charms Charlie to stay pinned to the floor and then kneels between her spread legs. "You're not just observing, and there'll be no quick kills this time. They're Muggles, they doesn't deserve it."

When Bellatrix is done and Charlie lays curled on her side, arms folded over her stomach as she cries softly, blood on the floor and covering her naked thighs, Harry kills Johnny. He keeps his gaze firmly away from Charlie, certain he won't be able to keep from vomiting if he looks at her, and makes a Wish. Lucius looks startled when Johnny's body makes an odd squelching noise and flops limply.

"What did you do?" he asks, looking down at the boy, whose face is an oddly twisted mess that's barely even recognisable as a face anymore, and Harry suddenly regrets his choice of murder, realising that he hasn't thought it through at all. He'd just wanted to do it as painlessly as possibly while still making it creative enough to satisfy Lucius.

"I took away his bones," he says, trying not to let the horror show in his voice and failing miserably. "All of them."

"Impressively disgusting."

Lucius kills Mr Bennett by hitting him repeatedly with the Bone Breaking Hex until he's too damaged to live anymore then Bellatrix, unsurprisingly, breaks her word to let Charlie live and casts a curse that makes her organs boil. She dies screaming and it takes every shred of effort Harry has not to snap her neck just to end it; he doesn't manage to keep himself from crying and is glad he has his mask to hide the tears from Lucius and Bellatrix.

* * *

Snape doesn't take his attention from the hallucinogenic he's brewing when he feels his pendant turn abruptly hot, but he does when he hears the sound of retching, casting a Stasis Spell on the cauldron to keep it from exploding and quickly moving downstairs. He finds Harry in the kitchen, throwing up into the sink. Snape goes to him, pulling his hair out the way, and Harry flinches.

When he's finished vomiting, Harry slides down to the floor and sits with his legs drawn up and arms wrapped around them, face buried in his knees.

"How do you do it?" he asks in a hoarse whisper

"Do what?"

"Live with yourself."

"You find something that makes it worth it."

"How can anything be worth this? She was his friend. His girlfriend once. And I let her die. I can't ever look him in the eye again."

"Look who in the eye?" Snape asks, frowning.

"Tyler," Harry mutters and feels Snape stiffen beside him.

"You did what you had to," Snape says when Harry tells him what happened.

Harry laughs but it's humourless and hollow. "The voice says that. 'We're doing what we have to. It's for Sirius and James. It's for the good of our sanity. You know what'll happen if we don't.'"

"The voice in your head," Snape says slowly, "is advising you on the good of your sanity?

"Ironic, isn't it? I think I'm getting crazier anyway. I'm going to end up like Bellatrix."

"You will not end up like her."

"Promise me that, can you?" he asks, and Snape doesn't answer.

* * *

 _You have to become like him,_ the voice says later, when he's curled in bed with Padfoot at his feet and Prongs on the floor beside the bed. It's not the first time they've slept in his room and he always finds himself torn between comfort and guilt at their presence.

'Become like who?' he thinks back, fairly certain Padfoot and Prongs are both asleep but not about to talk aloud anyway, just in case.

_Your daddy. You have to turn into a cold-hearted bastard and then you won't be driven to Bellatrix Lestrange levels of insanity._

'He's the last person I want to take after.'

_So you'd rather take after Bella? You can't keep claiming you hate daddy dearest after you faked his death. You risked Sirius for him._

'He abandoned me.'

_Then he betrayed the Dark Lord for you despite knowing it would get him killed. Admit it, it wouldn't be that terrible to take after your daddy. You've already got a Mark on your arm like him. And you can lose that little fear you have of becoming exactly like him; you're never going to have a kiddy of your own to abandon so don't worry about it._

He hasn't even realised he has such a fear, but he knows it's true the moment the voice says it.

_Let's look at it this way—you've got less than two years. You take after your daddy, spend the rest of your short, short life being a cold, heartless bastard, then when you get dragged to hell you'll spend the rest of your existence paying penance for the sins you've committed under the Dark Lord's command. You already know you're going to hell; why bother trying to do good on this earth when it'll gain you nothing?_

'It'll gain me a clear conscience.'

_Ha! You're too far gone for that and you know it. You'll never have a clear conscience again._

* * *

Dumbledore sends Harry a brief and purposely vague letter a week before the end of the holidays asking if he's made a decision about the private lessons Dumbledore offered. Harry's response is even briefer: _I have conditions._

By the end of the month, Harry's killed two more people, tortured another, kidnapped two, and he knows the voice in his head is right. He made his choice, he put Sirius and James' life before everyone else's, and either he deals with that or he drives himself to insanity. So every time his Mark burns, every time the memories get too much for him, every time he wakes up in the night from dreams full of dead people, he thinks of Snape and the cold, bitter, disdainful persona he portrayed in the classroom. It's like hiding inside himself, letting someone else come forward to torture and kill.

But it only works when he's doing it. Afterwards, either at Spinner's End or Black Stag House, he breaks down and cries, hating himself and the things he's done. A couple of times he hates himself enough to contemplate suicide, but the voice turns violently abusive, calling him selfish and snidely remarking that his death would destroy Sirius, especially so soon after Lupin's death, and only that keeps Harry from doing it.

It works fine until the last day of August, when Voldemort watches him kill a woman—he doesn't know her name, what she did, or why she's chosen to die, and he doesn't care to know—and then says he's proud.

"I saw the horror in your eyes when you returned from your first mission," Voldemort tells him. The dead woman's still on the floor between them. "I'm sure it was harder to kill someone who hadn't wronged you so badly, as your worthless father had, but now you do it with ease. You're a true Death Eater, Harry. I knew you would be an excellent addition to my ranks. It is a pity you will be trapped at that school for the following months."

"Thank you, my lord," he murmurs, bowing and leaving when he's been dismissed.

He goes to Spinner's End and smashes everything in the kitchen, screaming that he doesn't want Voldemort's praises, that he doesn't want to be worthy of his ranks, that he doesn't want any of it. When the anger passes, he's left feeling numb and empty. He doesn't even cry. Snape gives him two potions, one he recognises as a Draught of Peace, the other—

"Dreamless Sleep," Snape tells him. "You've got a long day tomorrow. Take that tonight and all the Draught of Peace in the morning. It'll last you the entire day."

"Why?"

"Because aside from having to spend seven hours on a train with two hundred other children, you're also going to have to face Tyler. I think you'll find you need it."

* * *

"See you at Hogwarts, kid," Sirius says as Harry boards the train at platform nine and three-quarters the next morning. "Have a good trip."

"See you," he says, and turns to go only to walk into Theo Nott and his father.

"Watch where you're going, boy," the man says, and even with the Draught of Peace Harry feels terror and hate and disgust building inside him, because he may not have seen the man's face, but he knows that voice, has heard it in his nightmares for weeks. The man leers and Harry thinks the potion is the only thing that stops every panel of glass in the station's roof from shattering and Nott from dying on the spot. It's not enough to stop his magic from lashing out to make the man stagger backwards and away from Harry like he's just tripped on something, knocking into people.

"You alright?" Sirius asks, tone worried as he looks at Harry's suddenly pale face, sparing only a disdainful glance at Nott with the ignorance of thinking his stumble is entirely accidental. Harry nods but doesn't trust himself to speak.

He finds an empty compartment and settles in it, stowing his trunk and Hedwig's cage and holding Lily and Rowena's cage on his lap, his hands shaking. They're rolling around and bouncing at the bars, squeaking excitedly like they realise it's an important day, completely oblivious to the fact that their owner is struggling to keep his breakfast down as he's assaulted by the memory of unwanted hands on his skin and the pain and fear and humiliation that came with them.

"I can't find Cid."

Harry glances up then quickly down again as Tyler stomps into the compartment and throws himself onto the seat, scowling heavily and folding his arms over his chest. Even the Draught of Peace isn't enough to stop his stomach twisting guiltily and he wishes he's sat with someone else. The memories Tyler elicits are no better than the one's Nott brought on.

"Oh," he says quietly.

"Don't ask me about my summer. It was shit."

"Okay," he says in a small voice, still staring at Lily and Rowena.

"Those are those... what are they called that you can get at Weasley Wizard Wheezes, aren't they?"

Harry nods. "Pygmy Puffs. This is Lily and Rowena," he says, pointing to each.

"Wasn't Lily your mum's name?"

"James said she probably wouldn't mind."

For an hour they're the only two in there. Tyler asks him about what classes he's planning to take this year, what the OWLs were like, whether he read any interesting books, and Harry answers his questions and looks at him only as much as he has to to avoid appearing rude. He thinks Tyler's trying to keep conversation going to avoid being left with his thoughts, which Harry fully understands; he just wishes Tyler was doing it with someone else. When Cid eventually turns up, Harry bites back a relieved sigh and prepares to excuse himself so he can leave, only to notice the prefect badge pinned to Cid's robes.

" _You?_ " Tyler says incredulously. "Who thought _you_ were the ideal choice for prefect?"

Cid shrugs, sitting down beside him. "Not sure. Snape if he made recommendations before he died. If not, whoever our new Head of House is, I guess."

"Who else is?" Harry asks, not mentioning that it was Snape who made the recommendations; he told Harry as much. Harry asked if Snape considered him for a possibility before his expulsion; Snape admitted that he did purely out of bias.

"Jia," Cid tells them. "Ed Coleman and Jill Oscar in Ravenclaw, Jonah Fitch and Isabelle Walker in Hufflepuff, and Rebecca DiCamillo and David Price from Gryffindor."

"Ed's no surprise," Tyler remarks. "Always knew he'd get it. He'll probably end up Head Boy as well."

"That reminds me, we've got a Slytherin Head Boy this year. Logan Sparrow."

"Cool. What about Head Girl?"

"Michelle Parker, Ravenclaw."

Harry excuses himself now that Cid's there to keep Tyler company, saying he's going to find Draco but with the intention of heading straight to the nearest bathroom. Even with the Draught of Peace he hates being around so many people and every time he shuts his eyes he remembers Nott's leering face and his voice telling Harry to watch out. He needs to get off the train and the fact that it's racing through the countryside at seventy miles an hour doesn't dissuade him.

* * *

Snape's making himself lunch when he hears the pop of Apparition from the living room and the pendant grows hot around his neck. Concerned as to why Harry is in his house instead of on the Hogwarts Express, he sets down the butter knife and heads through to find Harry knelt on the floor with a small animal cage clutched in both hands and tears spilling down his cheeks from closed eyes. Snape moves over and drops to his knees beside him.

"What happened?"

Harry shakes his head, not answering, and then to Snape's utter surprise he puts down the animal cage, which holds what appear to be two small balls of fluff, and collapses against Snape, grabbing at the front of his robe and burying his face in his chest. Unsure of what else to do, Snape awkwardly wraps his arms around the teenager, rubbing a soothing hand over his back and waiting for the tears to stop.

"I should have said yes."

Snape looks down but Harry doesn't take his face from Snape's chest, nor let go of him, so Snape has no choice but to keep hold of him in return.

"When?"

Harry's hand tightens on his robe. "When... when Nott—"

He wrenches himself away from Snape then, hurtling to his feet and turning away, wrapping his arms around himself and hunching his shoulders.

"I should have said yes," he repeats angrily, voice wobbling. "I should have said I would join the Dark Lord then. I could have stopped—stopped him and Sirius never would have been tortured." His grip on himself tightens and his voice drops to a whisper. "What's wrong with me? Why would I let that happen when I could have stopped it?"

"Harry, you didn't let anything happen," Snape replies, getting to his feet as well. "You couldn't stop Nott. You—"

"I could have!" he yells, whirling to glare through his tears at Snape. "You saw it, I could have said yes and I didn't! Why—why didn't I? What if... what if I..."

"You didn't want it, Harry," Snape says firmly. "Don't think that. You did not want to be raped."

Harry flinches at the word, turning his head away as fresh tears spilling down his cheeks. "Then why?" he whispers. "Why didn't I stop him?"

"Harry, you did everything you could—"

"I didn't!"

"You did," Snape repeats firmly. "Harry, listen to me. I tried to tell you this before but you refused to let me discuss it: you told Nott you would join the Dark Lord and he raped you anyway."

Harry stares at him. "What?"

"That's what the memory restorative showed me. You said you would join, but Nott did it anyway." He approaches Harry, slowly lifting his hands to rest them on Harry's shoulders. "You couldn't stop him, Harry. This wasn't your fault. I have more of the potion; you can see for yourself."

Harry squeezes his eyes shut, a few more tears dripping down from them, and shakes his head, stepping back beyond Snape's reach. "He wasn't the first," he says in a whisper, eyes still shut and face turned away, hunching his shoulders and gripping his arms tightly. "Before that, before you came, Yaxley tried—he didn't get—he just touched me and he was going to—but Bellatrix said the Dark Lord said he had to stop, but I... I didn't stop him either and he said I wanted it because I'm a teenage boy and all teenage boys want it but I said I didn't but when he touched me I couldn't help it and it sort of felt good but didn't and I don't think I wanted it but I didn't stop him and—and—"

"Harry."

He breaks off with a shuddering gasp, refilling his lungs after speaking so rapidly. He tenses when Snape lays his hands over Harry's own, but doesn't pull away.

"Harry, look at me."

He doesn't, but Snape says nothing more and doesn't move, so he reluctantly opens his eyes and lifts them to meet Snape's. There's no disgust on his face, as Harry expects, but Harry can't quite read his expression and he doesn't know what Snape's going to say.

"This wasn't your fault," he says firmly. "You're a human with a mostly healthy and properly functioning body. Just because it responded to external stimuli doesn't mean you wanted Yaxley to touch you and it doesn't mean that Yaxley was right about you wanting it." When Harry looks at him sceptically, he asks, "If I tapped your knee with the correct force, what would happen?"

"It'd do that kicky thing. A reflex."

"And when it does, does that mean you want to kick me?"

Harry shakes his head.

"Precisely. The body reacts to physical sensations, Harry. It's not reflective of our desires. You didn't want Yaxley to touch you."

"But I didn't stop him. I didn't stop them torturing me, I didn't stop any of it. I didn't even stop him torturing Sirius for ages. And now I kill and torture people. What if I'm a bad person?" he asks desperately. "What if—what if I'm sick in the head? I've already got a voice there; maybe that's not just it and I do want to get hurt and I do like killing people and—"

"Stop!" Snape interrupts him sharply, expression severe now. "Harry Evans, you are not a bad person. Listen to me carefully: _You are not a bad person_. I firmly believe the voice you hear is the result of the Imperius Curse and I do think you should see someone about it, but it doesn't make you a bad person, it doesn't make you enjoy being tortured, and it doesn't make you enjoy killing people."

"You don't know that."

"I do," he counters sternly. "I have spent far more time than I've cared to around bad people who enjoy murder. They do not break down into tears or hate themselves or smash kitchens over it."

"But what about... when Yaxley...?"

"When stressed, we do not think straight. But Harry, whatever you didn't say, you didn't want him to do that to you and it wasn't your fault."

Harry squeezes his eyes shut, a few more tears dripping down from them but he's almost cried himself out, so he merely leans against Snape's chest, shaking as Snape's arms come around him.


	70. Chapter 70

"I should get back to the train," Harry say shakily some time later, when the tears have dried on his face and the shakes have mostly stopped.

"You cannot Apparate onto a moving train; you could kill yourself."

Harry pulls away from him, wiping at his face and not meeting Snape's gaze. Snape pretends not to notice the wet patch on the front of his robes.

"I have to get to school."

"You can Apparate to Hogsmeade Station shortly before seven, when the train is due, and slip into the crowd when the students disembark. Your friends may have noticed your absence, but there's little to be done about that."

"I didn't want to see Tyler anymore anyway," Harry mutters.

"Did you take the Draught of Peace I gave you yesterday?"

Harry nods. "Maybe I've become immune to it."

"There've been no reported incidents of such a thing happening, but it only works to a certain degree. When distressed enough, the user can render the potion useless."

Harry nods his understanding, but says nothing. The distress of seeing Nott and the guilt of seeing Tyler are probably more than enough to overwhelm the potion, though he hasn't heard from the voice all day so it clearly still has some effect.

"What do I do until seven?" he asks.

"Firstly you can tell me what on earth those are," Snape says, pointing to the cage on the floor.

"Pygmy Puffs. They're miniature puffskeins; Fred and George bred them and they sell them at their shop. That's Lily and Rowena."

"You named a miniature, bright red puffskein 'Lily'."

"It's my pygmy puff and I can name her what I want and besides, James thinks Mum wouldn't have minded."

Snape's jaw clenches at that, but he doesn't argue, merely turns to one of his many bookshelves, crouching to take a leather bound journal from the bottom shelf and holding it out to Harry. "History is your favourite subject, is it not?"

Harry nods, confused but taking the book from him.

"This is the journal of one of my—our—ancestors who joined the vampires during the sixteenth century rebellion and became enamoured under a vampire seduction. Personally I find her mad ramblings of little worth, but you might find it of interest."

"This is an actual journal from someone alive during the vampire rebellion?" Harry gasps. "Do you know what this could be worth? What information it might hold? There are almost no firsthand accounts of—"

"Harry," Snape interrupts, holding up a hand, "while I respect your interests, I never cared for history. Read it. Keep it if you like. I'm going to finish making my lunch then continue with the narcotic I have brewing upstairs."

"Hey, um...?"

Snape pauses at the kitchen door, looking back at Harry, who now holds the journal against his chest and looks at Snape nervously.

"Do, um... do your parents know about... me?" Harry asks hesitantly.

"My mother's been dead nine years," Snape tells him, "but although I told her about you, several times, she had dementia so never remembered. My father died before your first birthday and my grandparents have been dead longer than that."

"Oh."

"Before you ask, I'm an only child. I'm sorry I can't give you any more family to meet."

Harry shrugs, feigning nonchalance. "It's fine. I just wondered. Thanks for the book."

* * *

Harry Apparates to Hogsmeade invisible that evening, glad he does as there are a handful of Aurors on the platform, and arrives just a minute before the train pulls in. He slips into the crowd as students disembark and turns himself visible, his sudden appearance ignored by teenagers too relieved to finally get off the train to pay attention. He heads in the direction of the carriages, but jumps when he feels a hand on his arm.

"Hey, it's just me," Draco's familiar voice says, and he relaxes. "I couldn't find you on the train."

"Sorry, I was a bit overwhelmed. I hid away for the trip. I'm fine," he adds when Draco's worried expression doesn't disappear. "It was just all the people... how are you?"

"I'm fine. Are you sure you're alright?"

Harry forces a small smile onto face. "I'm fine, Draco. Really."

It takes longer getting into the school than usual that evening. At the gates every one of them is stopped so Filch can run a Secrecy Sensor over them. Harry stands stiffly as the device passes over him, half-expecting it to go off the moment it passes his arm, but it remains perfectly silent and he's gestured inside with the rest of the students.

Harry isn't the least bit surprised when Tyler, Cid, and Draco turn on him with accusing and questioning eyes when they notice Sirius and James sat at the staff table.

"Why are your dad and godfather here?" Tyler asks in a demanding voice.

"Wouldn't know," Harry replies flippantly.

They get their answer soon enough though, when Dumbledore makes his announcements. "I'm sure you're all aware of Professor Snape's unfortunate death this summer. Replacing him as Potions Master is an old colleague of mine, Professor Slughorn, and the new Head of Slytherin is Professor Sinistra. The post of Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher will be shared this year by Professors Potter and Black."

"Why didn't you ever mention this?" Draco demands as they walk down to Slytherin after the meal.

"They asked me not to," Harry confesses. "Don't really know why, but they did."

"How difficult are they going to make my life?"

"They won't make your life difficult. Why would you say that?"

Draco stops, tugging him out of the flow of students and off to one side. "I know we don't talk about what my father did, but the fact remains he did it, and James and Sirius have made it perfectly clear that they don't like me."

"They won't make your life difficult, Draco. If they do, I'll talk to them, remind them that you're not Lucius."

When they reach the dorms, Draco grabs his sleeve as he heads down the boys' corridor. "Where you going?"

"My dorm."

Draco points to the door he's stood in front of. "You're a sixth year now, remember? New dorm room."

"Oh. Right."

With another bed in it, the sixth year dorm seems smaller. Theo agrees, grumbling about the reduced space. Harry pretends not to hear, digging out his pyjamas, toiletry bag, and towel and heading down to the bathroom to take a long, hot shower, staying in it until his skin has wrinkled. It doesn't lessen the filthy feeling he's had ever since his imprisonment. No amount of showering seems to; no matter how much he scrubs his skin, he never feels clean. He dries and dresses in the bathroom while it's empty and then, almost reluctantly, returns to the dorm.

* * *

"Harry! _Harry!_ "

He wakes with a gasp, lashing out at the hands on his arms, scrambling up and away until his back hits the headboard, blinking at the figure in front of him until he realises it's Draco, blond hair falling all over the place and pale face worried.

"You were dreaming."

Harry nods jerkily, swallowing thickly and glancing around the room. Crabbe and Theo are awake as well, Theo with his wand lit, scowling as he looks over to them

"Go back to the fifth years if you're going to keep waking us up like that, Evans," Theo grumbles, putting out his light and lying back down. Harry looks away, tossing his covers aside and getting up, pushing past Draco to the door and out of the room. He's glad to find the common room empty when he reaches it and relights the dying fire with a glance, going to the armchair closest to it and sitting down, drawing his legs up and Wishing Kiwi from his bedroom at home, clutching her tightly to his chest and burying his face in her fur.

"Theo bothers you, doesn't he?"

Harry doesn't look up at Draco's quiet words. He feels him sit on the arm of the chair, a warm presence at his side, but he doesn't touch him.

"It was his dad," Harry says.

"What about him?"

"He was the one... it was him that... that..."

He feels Draco stiffen and knows he's figured it out. "He's the one that raped you?"

Harry nods, clutching Kiwi tighter. "I saw him," he says in a whisper. "On the platform this morning. He looked at me and... it was—I felt dirty and horrible and—God, I hated it so much. It hurt and it felt disgusting and I—" He breaks off, shuddering, and inhales shakily. "I know—I know it wasn't Theo, but he... he sounds like him."

Draco doesn't know what to say to that.

"You should go back to bed," Harry mutters.

"What about you?"

He shakes his head. "I won't sleep again."

"It's three in the morning. You should try."

"I can't. It's fine, Draco, really. Go to bed."

"I can stay up with you."

"One of us should get a decent night's sleep."

"You sure?"

He nods. "I'll be fine."

Despite his words he does end up falling asleep shortly before dawn then jerks awake an hour later, unsure for a moment where he is and what woke him, then he looks up and sees Victoria Vaisey with Tabitha Sinclair, his old year mates, the former holding Kiwi by both arms while the latter watches with a smirk and laughter in her eyes. A couple of third years are watching from across the room.

"You sleep with a teddy bear?" Victoria sneers. Harry gets up and tries to snatch Kiwi from her, but Victoria's quicker, hopping back.

"Give her back before I break all your fingers," Harry threatens, but Victoria just snorts, looking him over derisively.

"You couldn't beat up a first year let alone me. And look at this, it's so _childish_."

"Give her back!"

"Make me, baby."

"Give her back!"

She does, then blinks, looking surprised. Tabitha's smirk drops to a scowl.

"What the hell, Vicky?"

"I don't... whatever. C'mon, let's go up to breakfast. See you later, _baby_."

He heads back to the dorm, annoyed to find the rest of them awake.

"Is that a _teddy bear_?" Theo blurts out instantly.

"Theo," Draco starts warningly, but Harry cuts him off.

"Yes, it is, and if any of you touch her I'll transfigure your fingers into marshmallows and make you eat them."

Draco glances at him with impressed surprise. Theo looks startled. Blaise merely continues to get dressed. Crabbe's still half asleep and doesn't seem to be paying attention.

"Is that possible?" Goyle asks curiously.

"Touch her and find out," Harry tells him, putting Kiwi on his bed but Wishing for no one to pay any further attention to her. He knows better than to trust Slytherins.

After breakfast Harry and the other sixth years remain seated as they wait for Professor Sinistra to finish handing out timetables to the rest of the students before coming to them, checking all their OWL results to ensure they've achieved the required grade to take their chosen subjects.

"I see you've been recommended for advanced classes in Ancient Runes and History of Magic," she says when she gets to Harry. "Will you be taking them?"

"Does that mean extra classes? I never had a career meeting last year so I don't know anything about them."

"It means you'll be taking seventh year classes at the same time," she explains. "You'll be expected to keep up with both and sit the NEWT at the end of this year, but if it proves too much then you're allowed to drop the advanced classes at any time. You're going to have a busy schedule this year if you do take them; are you sure you want to take all these classes?"

He nods. Although he's dropped Herbology, Astronomy, and Arithmancy, the advanced classes fill up much of the free periods they create.

"Alright. There you go." She taps her wand to a blank schedule and it fills up with his classes. He has Ancient Runes first and waits for Draco to get his schedule then they head off together.

"You really are busy this year," Draco remarks, looking over Harry's schedule.

"I want to be. Besides it's not like you can talk. You're taking a ton of classes."

"Everything I need for Healing."

"You need Ancient Runes for Healing?"

"Everything I need for Healing, plus Ancient Runes because it's fun," he admits with a smile.

Their classes are all shared that year. As well as him and Draco in Ancient Runes, there's Hermione and three Ravenclaws: Terry Boot, Mandy Brocklehurst, and Su Li. Harry finds the class noticeably harder than the last time he was in a classroom, but he doesn't struggle. Professor Babbling sets them a monster-load of homework though.

They have Defence Against the Dark Arts next. Harry compares schedules with Hermione as they head over; hers is almost as busy as his with her advanced Arithmancy and taking Herbology.

"Do you think it'll be weird having your dad teach Defence?" she asks him as they reach the classroom. Harry just shrugs.

James is sat behind the desk as they file into the classroom while Sirius sits on it, watching them all take their seats. Harry sits with Draco, with Hermione and Neville in front of them and a couple of Hufflepuff girls behind them, returning Sirius' greeting smile with a small one of his own.

"Alright," Sirius begins when they're all sat down, "first things first—it's Sirius and James. We're pretty lax when it comes to the rules and Professor Potter and Professor Black is way too pompous and authoritative, but if you're one of those people that dislikes that kind of familiarity with your teachers, just professor will do."

"At least you don't have to worry about slipping up with that then," Draco mutters to Harry.

"On that note," James says, leaning forward to rest his arms on the desk, "anyone who makes Sirius-serious jokes gets jinxed. I don't care how smart you think you are, I shared a dorm with this idiot for seven years and I promise you I've heard them all before."

There are a few laughs at that and Sirius affects an offended expression, but it soon passes. "Okay, one other thing before we get started: we're kind of famous. Not our fault. I've got a pretty face and it gets noticed; Merlin only knows why James does."

"Shut up, Padfoot. Most of you have probably read about us in the _Prophet_ and you're all curious, so this lesson, and this lesson only, you're free to ask whatever questions you've got."

Immediately several hands fly into the air. James points at Parvati Patil.

"Yeah, what's your name?"

"Parvati Patil. How come you're both teaching?"

Harry watches them, wondering what reason they'll give. They haven't said anything to him about how they planned to handle the inevitable queries and attention they'll get.

"I don't do so well on my own," James answers simply, only the slight hunching of his shoulders indicating any discomfort. "Dumbledore offered Sirius the job; I came along with him."

"Is that because of what Lucius Malfoy did?" Ron Weasley asks, and the tension in the room increases tenfold. Next to Harry, Draco sinks in his seat a little. More than a few people glance at him.

"Yes," James says, glancing briefly at Draco.

"Doesn't it bother you that your son's dating the son of the man that locked you up?" Lavender Brown asks.

"Harry can date whoever he likes," James answers as Harry scowls. "Draco had nothing to do with what Lucius did anyway."

"You believe that?" Ron asks sceptically. "Everyone knows he's basically a junior Death Eater just like his dad."

"Draco's nothing like Lucius," Harry snaps. "Keep your stupid mouth shut, Weasley."

"Alright, let's calm it down," Sirius says with a warning glance at Harry. "No one in this classroom—no one in this school—is a Death Eater and I don't want to hear any accusations to the contrary."

 _He has no idea how wrong he is,_ murmurs the voice, and Harry resists the urge to rub at his arm.

"What exactly did Lucius Malfoy do to you?" asks Ernie MacMillan from Hufflepuff. "Surely he didn't just lock you up for fourteen years."

"I've no interest in discussing that. Suffice to say it wasn't pleasant."

"What about this summer? You were kidnapped with Evans, weren't you? Was that Malfoy?"

"I don't know what happened. My memories of that time were wiped."

"Were yours?" Ron asks Harry.

"I'm not talking about it."

"That's a no, then? What—"

"I said I'm not talking about it, Weasley."

"Professor Bl- uh, I mean, Sirius," Mandy Brocklehurst says, "what was it like in Azkaban?"

"In a word? Horrible. I don't know how close any of you got to the Dementors guarding the school after I broke out, but they suck the happiness out of you. In Azkaban, it's constant. Every moment you're miserable, forced to relive the worst memories of your life."

"How did you break out?"

"That's not a question I'm allowed to answer. Any more before we get started? No? Alright, so you've had, what? Five teachers in this subject? I know at least one of them was damn good and two of them were utter shite. I—"

James clears his throat. Sirius glances at him.

"Language."

Sirius looks back at the class. "You lot are old enough to know when bad language is and isn't appropriate," he says. "From what I've heard, shite is about right for what Umbridge and Lockhart were like. I don't know much about Quirrell aside from being stupid enough to let Voldemort into his head, and I hear Moody was... about what you'd expect from a half-crazy Death Eater pretending to be a half-crazy Auror."

"Hang on," Theo interrupts, "that means you think Lupin was the good one. He was a _werewolf_."

"He was also my lover," Sirius says in a dangerous voice and Theo shuts up. Behind Harry, Hannah Abbott sighs.

"The handsome ones are always gay."

* * *

"Well that wasn't awkward at all," Draco remarks later after a lesson of practising to silently cast Shield Charms.

"It probably won't happen again," Harry replies. "It's just because it was the first class."

"You're painfully optimistic, Harry. You didn't have to stick up for me against Weasley, by the way."

Harry scowls, digging his toe into the dirt of the courtyard they're standing in for morning break. "I don't like people saying that. I know he's your father and you probably... but you're not like him. You wouldn't do the things he's done."

"I don't know half the things he's done."

"You don't want to," Harry mutters. "I should go. I've got advanced History next. What are you going to do?"

"Spend my free period working on that mountain of homework Babbling gave us."

There are only two other people in the seventh year History of Magic class—Logan Sparrow and Katie Bell, the new Gryffindor Quidditch Captain. Binns looks surprised to see Harry until he mentions being advanced class, then the ghost just tells him to take a seat and begins his usual droning lecture. Harry's glad he wasn't foolish enough to think these classes would be any more interesting than normal, because Binns is, as always, mind-numbingly boring.

He gets his first free period after lunch, but it's spent working on the Defence homework Sirius set, which, for someone who claims to disapprove of excessive studying, is a lot, and then he has double Potions for the last class of the day. There's eleven students in the class—him, Draco, Theo, Pansy, and Blaise from Slytherin; Hermione is the only Gryffindor and Ernie Macmillan the only Hufflepuff; and Terry Boot, Mandy Brocklehurst, Su Li, and Padma Patil from Ravenclaw.

Harry sits between Draco and Hermione, who seems to decide that sharing a workbench with Draco is worth sitting with Harry. After a few moments indecision, Ernie Macmillan joins them. Each workbench seats four students and with the Ravenclaws all sitting together, Ernie is left to either join Harry's table; sit with Pansy, Theo, and Blaise; or sit alone.

Slughorn already has three cauldrons set up and he asks them about each, looking amused but impressed at Hermione's eagerness to answer each question. Draco looks annoyed, especially when Hermione earns twenty house points for Gryffindor.

"If you'd put your hand up you could have got us some points," Harry mutters to him. "He's not Snape; you don't get any favouritism anymore."

"How would you know if Snape showed me favouritism?"

"Hermione and Neville complained about it enough."

"Do you have something to share with the class, boys?" Slughorn says loudly, a disapproving frown on his face as he looks between them.

"No, sir. Sorry," Harry apologises.

"Yes, well, keep your conversations outside the classroom, thank you. As I was saying, Amortentia doesn't create true love, of course..."

Harry glances at the cauldron nearest them, which is full of a potion giving off little spirals of steam and a thoroughly relaxing and almost seductive smell that reminds Harry of books, the Lake District, and freshly laundered clothes. Even the voice thinks it smells good, making a satisfied little noise when Harry inhales

Slughorn sets them to brewing the Draught of Living Death with the promised reward of a vial of Felix Felicis—liquid luck—to whomever brews it best. Harry has no expectations of winning, but he doesn't expect it to be because he has a seizure halfway through class that manages to not only knock his head, but also make him drop the mortar of powdered asphodel into his cauldron, which melts entirely and ruins the rest of the ingredients laid out in his workspace as well as his book. Only Hermione's quick spellwork keeps it from spilling further, ruining either her or Draco's stuff or spilling over onto Harry's twitching body.

"I hope you realise you lost me that Felix Felicis," Draco tells Harry as he walks him up to the Hospital Wing.

"Poor you," Harry mutters. His head is pounding and sticky with blood and he can't quite manage to care about the damage he's wrought.

"Yes, poor me. Granger's going to get it now, or possibly one of the Ravenclaws, which wouldn't be quite so terrible, but I deserved it."

Pomfrey fixes his head up easily and lets him stay the rest of the afternoon to rest up. He sleeps through dinner and wakes to find James sat by his bed, flipping through a _Witch Weekly_ magazine.

"Need tips on your autumn wardrobe?" Harry asks, which are the only words he can make out on the front of the magazine.

"It's all I could find," James says, closing it and tossing it onto the end of the bed.

"Why are you here?"

"Finally had enough of everyone and I thought you might like a friendly face to wake up to. How's your head?"

"Fine. Hungry though."

"Dumbledore wants to see you this evening, so you can come up to mine and Sirius' rooms, eat there and then floo through."

"Works for me. Where are your rooms?"

"Fourth floor."

James hasn't eaten either and they sit opposite each other, talking about their first days over the meal a house elf brings them. The rest of James' classes went much the same way as the first one, though lacking the tension caused by having Draco or Harry in the room. Sirius turns up just as they finish eating.

"Why did I ever agree to take this job?" he asks with a sigh, flopping onto the sofa beside James, toeing off his shoes and turning to rest against the arm and put his feet in James' lap. James shoves them off, wrinkling his nose.

"Your feet stink."

"What wrong with the job?" Harry asks.

"I've just had a fifth year in my office—which is cool, by the way; I like having an office—getting in a state over her OWLs already. I am not equipped to deal with hysterical fifteen year old girls."


	71. Chapter 71

At eight o'clock, Harry floos into Dumbledore's office where he's greeted with a smile and told to sit down.

"I wanted to discuss the conditions you said you had regarding the private lessons I wish to give you."

"I thought you might. Is that why you had me floo from Sirius and James' room?

"It is," Dumbledore agrees. "No one will question you visiting them occasionally, so you can go to their rooms and floo through to my office, which will keep anyone who might be watching you from realising you're having lessons with me."

"You think someone's watching me?" Harry asks in surprise. There's a sad gleam to Dumbledore's eyes.

"Draco Malfoy is not the only person with a Death Eater father, as I'm sure you know. It would not surprise me in the least if one of your house mates has been asked to report your activities to their parents."

_You really should have realised that sooner,_ the voice remarks, and Harry thinks it should have pointed it out if it knew.

"What conditions did you have, other than their safety?" Dumbledore asks him.

"Does Neville know the Dark Lord thinks he's the child of the prophecy?"

"You wish for me to tell him."

"And let him join the lessons."

That surprises Dumbledore.

"He deserves to know how to fight as well," Harry pushes. "The Dark Lord's after him; he needs to know that and he needs to know how to defend himself."

"Ah," Dumbledore says. "I appear to have given you the incorrect impression. Forgive me, Harry. I do not plan to teach you any magic. As you pointed out in the holidays, you can cast a great deal more powerful spells than I with merely a thought. What I plan to share with you is information that, I hope, will allow you to defeat Voldemort. I'm afraid I cannot be more detailed before you agree to take them."

"Okay, but still. If this is really that important to defeating him, I think Neville should know. It makes sense as well—you shouldn't put all your eggs in one basket. If something happened to me then Neville could continue fighting."

"Do you expect something to happen to you?"

"No," he lies. "But that doesn't mean much. People never expect things to happen to them, they just do."

"You are, of course, unfortunately correct. Very well, I will speak to Neville and see if he wishes to be involved. He may decide not to participate; that's his choice. Will you take the lessons even without him?"

Harry hesitates.

_Oh, let's not pretend you'll say no. You're curious, I'm curious, and we both know that while you might be reluctantly willing to torture and kill to keep Sirius and James safe, we still want our dear lord and master dead._

So Harry agrees. On the way out, though, he pauses to turn back and say, "Oh, sir?"

"Yes, Harry?"

"When you tell Neville about the prophecy, you can mention why the Dark Lord thinks it isn't me. Neville knows James isn't my dad; he just doesn't know it's Snape."

"I shall keep that in mind," Dumbledore says after a brief pause. "Goodnight, Harry. I'll see you on Saturday evening."

_You need to watch your tenses when you talk about Snape. One slip up is fine; anymore and people will start thinking things._

"'Thinking things'," Harry mutters, walking back down to Slytherin. "That's good. What's 'thinking things' meant to mean?"

_It means, you insufferable moron, that they might start wondering if he's really dead. Either that, or come to the conclusion you're unable to deal with his passing, which may very well lead to forced grief counselling._

"Yeah, fine, I'll watch my tenses."

_You want to watch that too._

"Watch what?"

_Talking aloud to me. You're not at home anymore._

* * *

Slughorn lends him a spare textbook to use while he waits for an owl ordered new one to arrive. He's annoyed when he first opens it and finds it full of scribbles, the previous owner apparently finding the printed instructions not good enough and using the margins for their own personal notes, but soon changes his attitude towards the 'Half-Blood Prince' (the only name he can find, scribbled on the back) when he realises that the altered instructions actually lead to better potions.

"This handwriting looks vaguely familiar," Draco remarks, looking through the book. He's not impressed by Harry's sudden stardom in potions, though he's less annoyed than Hermione, who thinks using the Prince's notes counts as cheating, though she at least doesn't report him. "Hardly legible, mind you, but kind of familiar. Wonder what these spells do."

"I'll try them out when I've got time," Harry says, bent over his Ancient Runes homework. With all his classes and the homework they set, he's barely had chance to do more than glance through the book and notice the spells the Prince has noted in the margins. Not that he's complaining; he likes keeping busy. The more he can focus his mind or something other than his own thoughts, the better.

* * *

"Harry, can I talk to you?"

Harry doesn't need to ask what Neville wants to talk to him about. It's Saturday morning and Neville comes over to the Slytherin table during breakfast, pale faced and looking like he hasn't slept all night.

"I got called to Dumbledore's office last night," Neville says when they're shut in a classroom, getting straight to the point. "He told me about the prophecy."

"You okay?"

"I... I don't really know. It's a lot to take in. But I want to tell Hermione."

"Okay."

"We should do it together. And you should tell her about your dad."

Harry nods. He's been thinking she should probably know after spending all week biting his tongue whenever she refers to James as his dad.

They fetch her that same morning and go to the Room of Requirement so they can talk without worrying about anyone disturbing them. The room gives them a cosy, warmly lit little room with bean bags to sit on, a fireplace, and a low circular coffee table with three steaming mugs of hot chocolate on it.

"Is this about what Dumbledore called you for last night?" Hermione asks as the three of them settle down. Neville nods.

"I need to tell you something first though," Harry says, hands wrapped around one of the mugs.

"Is everything alright?"

"Yeah, it's just... it's about my parents. It's, um... well, James isn't my dad."

Hermione frowns. "What do you mean?"

"My mum had an affair. It was just one night, actually, but... yeah. James isn't my dad."

"Do you know your real father?" Hermione asks once she's past the shock.

Harry hesitates, nods, and says, "Snape."

Neville knocks over his hot chocolate. " _Professor Snape?_ "

Harry nods. Hermione gapes.

"Do you think that's why Voldemort killed him?" Hermione asks. "Did he find out?"

"Sort of," Harry mutters gaze fixed on the mug in his hands. "Snape tried to help me, in the summer when... but he got caught. The Dark Lord found out he was really working for Dumbledore and that's why he killed him."

Hermione and Neville exchange glances. It's the most he's mentioned about the summer.

"We should tell her about the prophecy," Harry says. Hermione starts, looking between them.

"Prophecy?" she asks. They explain and her immediate question is, "But how can Voldemort think you're the child of the prophecy when Harry's got so much power and he's the one who defeated him before?"

"Does he know about your Wish Magic?" Neville asks, and Harry nods.

"What happened when I was a baby was a fluke, Hermione. It won't happen again. The Dark Lord just thinks I'm a weak, sick kid now even if I have got power. When I stopped Quirrell it was only because of the protection my mum left me by sacrificing herself and that's gone now. In the graveyard I only got away because of the Assistant, and this summer he just let me go."

"He let you go?" Hermione asks, surprised.

Harry nods again. He still hasn't looked up from the hot chocolate, which he hasn't drunk but it's keeping his hands occupied and the warmth is nice.

"Um, just—can we backtrack a bit," Neville says. "What do you mean by the graveyard and why is the protection from your mum gone?"

When Harry's explained, Neville turns to Hermione. "Did you know this?"

"Yes," she admits without guilt. "But you knew about his dad."

"I didn't know it was Snape," Neville says, but doesn't argue with her. "So now you can't just touch Voldemort and hurt him?"

Harry shakes his head.

"Harry," Hermione says carefully, "will you tell us what happened this summer?"

"He tortured me," he says quietly. "A lot. He wanted me to join the Death Eaters."

"But—"

"Then he took Sirius," Harry continues over Hermione, knowing he won't be able to finish if he stops. "He tortured Sirius to try and make me says yes, but when I kept refusing he put a Word of Death Curse on Sirius—" Hermione gasps, clearly knowing what it is "—and said we could go as long as I promise to never stand against him. You can't tell anyone," he says pleadingly, finally looking up to meet their pitying gazes. "You can't tell anyone I'm the child of the prophecy or about Sirius and especially not that Dumbledore's giving me lessons. If the Dark Lord finds out, Sirius will die and I can't lose him."

"Is that why you don't call him Voldemort anymore?" Neville asks after they've both promised to keep quiet. "Because it might be considered a slight against him?"

Harry nods. It's a good a reason as any.

"Oh, Harry," Hermione says, then she's around the table and slinging her arms around his neck in a hug, then she reaches out a hand to Neville, who comes over and wraps his arms around them both. Harry sits tensely, trying to fight the urge to throw them both off. He knows they mean well. "You two are both so incredible."

"Both of us?" Neville says, pulling away from the hug in surprise. Harry lets out a tiny sigh of relief when Hermione lets go as well.

"Yes, both of you. I don't think I would be half as strong as you are if I was hunted by a dark wizard and lost my parents and everything you've both been through."

"I told her about my parents at the end of last year," Neville says to Harry when he glances up at the mention of their parents.

"Will you two stop telling each other things and leaving me out now?" Hermione asks indignantly, only half faking it. "It's disheartening to find things out last."

Neville and Harry share a guilty smile. "We will," they promise.

* * *

"You going to come watch me hold tryouts this afternoon?" Draco asks Harry at lunch.

"Tryouts?"

"For the Quidditch team. We need new Chasers and a Keeper."

"Oh, right. You're the captain now. You want me to?"

"Be nice to see your face while I have to deal with all the idiots that are trying out."

"Fuck you, Malfoy," comes Cid's familiar voice from behind them, but without malice. "It is at one, right?"

"Are you trying out?" Harry asks, tilting his head back to look up at Cid.

"Yeah, figured I might. I'm not a bad flier."

"Then you've got no hope," Draco drawls. "I want good fliers, not 'not bad' ones."

"What position?" Harry asks.

"Keeper."

"I'll come watch," Harry says to Draco after wishing Cid luck. "We can fly together afterwards."

"Sound good to me," Draco agrees.

He sits in the stands with his Firebolt beside him and a book in his lap as the tryouts happen. To his surprise, he's joined just as they start by Tyler, who slouches down beside him, hands in his pockets and looking grumpy.

"You alright?"

"Bored."

"So you came to tryouts? You don't even like Quidditch."

Tyler shrugs. "Cid's here, you're here, and I'm not in the mood for finding someone to mess around with."

"What about Alex?" Harry asks, and instantly realises he's said something wrong. Tyler's expression darkens and he draws his hands out of his pockets to cross his arms over his chest, kicking at the bench in front of them and drawing a dirty look from Jia and Toni, who are sat a little further along that same bench.

"Alex left," Tyler says shortly. "His parents took him and Jessica to America after Death Eaters killed Charlie and her family in the summer."

"Oh," Harry says, wishing he'd never mentioned Alex at all, staring at his book without seeing a word. "I'm sorry," he adds, then clamps his mouth shut before the torrent of guilt can make him say something really stupid. Thankfully Tyler seems as eager to leave the topic behind as he is.

"You trying out?" he asks, nodding to the Firebolt.

"No, just going to fly a bit with Draco after they're done."

* * *

"That was unpleasantly tedious," Draco says a few hours later, flying over to hover in front of Harry while the rest of the new team traipse off the pitch and the stands empty of the few other onlookers that came to watch. Tyler mutters a goodbye and leaves to go congratulate Cid on making the team and Harry shrinks and pockets his book, taking up his broomstick.

"Well at least it's over and your team seems alright."

"You'd have picked differently?" Draco asks as Harry straddles the Firebolt and flies out to join him, the two of them drifting lazily across the pitch.

"I think you should replace Crabbe and Goyle. I know they're big, but they're really not that good as Beaters."

"Then I would have spent longer in tryouts and upset my friends. They're decent enough."

"Don't say I didn't warn you when you get your arses kicked."

"As if," Draco scoffs. "The 'puffs have made no changes to their team this year and they're barely adequate. The Ravens might give us a bit of a hard time; they got a couple of new Chasers yesterday, but we can still beat them. Gryffindor... well, they haven't had tryouts yet but they lost two Chasers and the Weasley girl is only a semi-decent Seeker. McLaggen's not a bad Keeper but after last year I doubt Bell will keep him on the team."

* * *

That evening, Harry floos into Dumbledore's office. Neville is already there and Dumbledore has his Pensieve sat on the desk. He tells them they're going into the memory of a Ministry worker named Bob Ogden and when they step into it, they find themselves on a small country lane, following a short, plump man in thick glasses. As they round a corner, they find themselves at the top of a steep hill overlooking a valley holding a small village, and on the other side is a second hill holding a grand manor house that makes Harry inhale sharply. He's only had one look at the outside of the Riddle House, but it's enough for him to recognise the place.

To his relief, they don't venture down into the village and to the Riddle House, as he feared, but turn off the path onto a narrow dirt track which leads them to a copse holding a house that's in terrible disrepair and has a dead snake nailed to the door. As Bob Ogden approaches—cautiously—there's a rustle and a man in rags drops from one of the trees to land right in front of him.

" _You're not welcome here_."

"I'm from the Ministry of—"

" _You're not welcome_."

"Erm, I'm sorry, I don't understand you."

"You understand him, I'm sure, Harry?" Dumbledore says quietly.

"Well, yeah. It's pretty clear. This—"

_He's speaking Parseltongue, moron._

"Oh," Harry says, then adds for Neville and Dumbledore's benefit, "Parseltongue. Right."

They watch as the man in rags draws his wand and a knife, approaching Ogden and hexing him so a large amount of yellow pus starts pouring from his nose. Right after, the front door of the house opens and another man comes out, this one shorter but older than the first.

"Morfin!"

Morfin is now cackling at the sight of the pus spewing from Ogden's nose.

"Ministry, is it?" says the older man, looking at Ogden with contempt.

"Correct!" says Ogden angrily, dabbing his face. "And you, I take it, are Mr Gaunt?"

"S'right," he says, then out of the corner of his mouth to Morfin, " _Get in the house. Don't argue._ "

"It's your son I'm here to see, Mr Gaunt," says Ogden, as he mops the last of the pus from the front of his coat. "That was Morfin, wasn't it?"

"Ar, that was Morfin."

"Perhaps we could continue this discussion inside?"

"Inside?"

"Yes, Mr Gaunt. I've already told you. I'm here about Morfin, following a serious breach of Wizarding law, which occurred here in the early hours of this morning—"

"All right, all right, all right! Come in the bleeding house, then, and much good it'll do you!"

Inside the house—which is dirty and uncared for—they find another person, a girl no more than eighteen in a ratty grey dress who Gaunt dismissively introduces as his daughter Merope. Harry, Neville, and Dumbledore watch as Ogden attempts to confront Morfin about attacking a Muggle from the village, which only drives Gaunt to wave his hand in front of Ogden's face, showing him a ring and shouting about it being a pureblood heirloom, but Ogden doesn't care for it. Unfortunately his brazen disregard only infuriates Gaunt further, causing him to lunge at Merope and drag her forwards to show Ogden a locket hanging about her neck, a locket he claims once belonged to Salazar Slytherin—a locket Harry recognises instantly, because it's sitting in his vault at Gringotts.

_Don't mention it. They don't need to know so don't you dare mention it._

Harry doesn't, keeping his mouth shut as they watch the rest of the memory. There's little more to see. Ogden starts to claim Morfin has to appear at the Ministry for a hearing when the sound of hooves and voices pass by the house and his reprimand is interrupted by Morfin hissing mockingly at his sister.

"What are they saying?" Neville asks Harry.

"Merope fancies that man on the horse outside," Harry tells him and Dumbledore, "but he's a Muggle—oh, he's the Muggle Morfin hexed—and obviously Mr Gaunt isn't happy—"

That much is obvious when Gaunt launches at Merope and starts strangling her, only to get thrown off by a yelled " _Relashio!_ " from Ogden. Morfin leaps up from his seat then and starts towards Ogden, who wisely decides to run instead of fight.

"Sir, what happened to Merope?" Neville asks the moment they're out of the pensive. "Was she alright?"

"She survived," Dumbledore reassures him. "Ogden returned with reinforcements and arrested both Morfin and Marvolo."

"Wait, Marvolo?" Harry repeats. "As in Tom Marvolo?"

Dumbledore nods. "That was Voldemort's grandfather, from whom he got his middle name."

"Then... was Merope his mum or Morfin his dad?" He remembers then some of the things he's heard Sirius say about his family and pureblood tendencies towards inbreeding, and sickeningly asks, "They weren't both his parents, were they?"

"No," Dumbledore assures him. "Merope was his mother and we did catch a glimpse of his father."

"The man on the horse?" Neville guesses.

"But he's a Muggle!" Harry cries.

"That's correct."

"Voldemort's a half-blood?" Neville asks and Harry drops into a chair when Dumbledore nods.

"A half-blood," he mutters incredulously. "He's a _half-blood_. How can he go about doing what he does when he's a _halfie_?"

Dumbledore frowns and Harry quickly apologises. Halfie might not be anywhere near as insulting as Mudblood, but it still isn't polite, as Harry well knows. He's had it thrown at him more than a few times from his less pleasant housemates.

"Tom Riddle Senior left Merope while she was pregnant and Merope died shortly after giving birth, leaving Voldemort, or rather Tom Riddle Junior, to be raised in a Muggle orphanage."

"But how can he hate Muggles when he was raised around them?" Neville asks. "That doesn't make any sense."

"Yes it does," Harry says quietly. "Orphanages are gateways to hell, homes for damned children. You end up in one, you're doomed no matter what you do with the rest of your life. The Dark Lord's early experiences with Muggles was crap—his father left his mother, and then he's raised in one of those places? It's no wonder he became what he did."

Neville and Dumbledore stare at Harry.

"What?"

"Orphanages aren't for damned children," Neville says. "They're just for people whose parents died and they don't have anyone else to look after them."

"And then they're damned. It's alright if you get adopted or something and get out quick, but most of them don't and then they're damned for all eternity."

"Harry, who told you that?" Dumbledore asks.

"My—" he breaks off, a flush creeping up his cheeks, then reluctantly finishes, "My uncle. He lied?"

"He did," Dumbledore says softly.

"How did Merope and Tom Riddle end up hooking up anyway?" Harry asks, eager to get the conversation away from him. "He obviously didn't think much of the whole family in that memory."

"She was a witch. Can you not think of any measure Merope could have taken to make Tom Riddle fall in love with her?"

"A love potion?" Neville suggests, and Dumbledore nods. Harry is sceptical.

"She didn't seem to be much of a witch."

"Under the oppressive thumb of her father and brother, no, but when they were arrested and she was free for the first time in her life, she could give free reign to her abilities."

"But he left her, so it must have gone wrong, right?"

"I believe, and remember that this is pure speculation, that Merope was so besotted with Tom that she couldn't bare to continue bewitching him. Perhaps she truly believed he would love her, or that he would stay for their unborn child."

"Can we tell Hermione about this?" Neville asks when Dumbledore says they're done for the night. Dumbledore glances at Harry.

"I told them about Sirius' curse. They know we have to keep it quiet."

"You haven't told anyone else, I presume?" Dumbledore asks, and Harry doesn't need him to clarify that he's talking about Draco. Harry hasn't told him about these lessons. Not yet, anyway. If there's anyone he trusts to keep a secret, it's Draco.

"No, sir."

"Hermione knows how to keep a secret," Neville says.

"You may tell her," Dumbledore allows. "But be careful around whom you speak."

When Harry floos back into Sirius and James' rooms, he finds James sat on the sofa with Padfoot sprawled across his lap, petting absently at the dog's head as he marks homework assignments.

"How was it?" he asks as Harry heads for the door.

"Informative."

_That story is a little too familiar for your comfort_ , the voice remarks as he heads back down to Slytherin. _Dead mother, father who's not interested, less than stellar childhood..._

'Did you know about the locket?' Harry asks, because there's no point arguing when it's true.

_How could I possibly know about it? I'm just a voice inside your head._

'Then why did you tell me to keep it when they were going to throw it out?'

_I simply thought we should. Does it matter? You realise you now own a priceless artefact? An object from one of the Hogwarts founders must be worth a fortune._

'What good is that to me? I can't do anything with my money.'

_I really don't see what it matters. We've got the locket; it's just a fact. Forget about the bloody thing if it makes you feel better._

* * *

"What good is learning about the Dark Lord's history going to do you?" Draco asks when Harry tells him about the lessons, the two of them in a chair in the corner of the common room, Harry on Draco's lap. He's Wished for no one to be able to hear them, no matter what they say, so they can talk without worry.

"Know thine enemy. Dumbledore reckons we'll learn something about how to defeat him."

Draco's expression says he clearly doubts it, but asks, "So what did you learn?"

"The Dark Lord's a half-blood. His father was a Muggle."

" _What?!_ You're lying."

"I'm not."

"Dear Merlin. You should tell the rest of the Death Eaters; they'll abandon him in a heartbeat. I can't believe my father grovels to a _halfie_."

"I'm a halfie. Are you that disgusted about dating one?"

Draco scowls at him. "Of course not. But dating a half-blood is one thing; bending your knee to one is a different matter. It suggests he thinks they're better than him."

"So you think I'm lesser than you because I'm not pureblood."

"No."

"Sounds like it."

"I don't," Draco insists. "How could I ever think you're lesser than me when you've got the power you do?"

Harry rests his head on Draco's shoulder, not wanting to argue about it further, and says, "They wouldn't believe me about him being a halfie anyway, and even if they did, they wouldn't leave," Harry points out. "They'd be too scared. Besides, he'd want to know how I know and he'd probably kill me for telling everyone."


	72. Chapter 72

The next week passes much the same as the first. Classes and homework keep him busy and although the advanced classes are hard, he puts in the effort to keep up, but all the work does have the bonus side effect of keeping his mind busy and distracted. He just wishes his nightmares would ease up; every night he wakes up, screaming and terrified and imaging ghostly hands on his skin or gasping and tearful and hearing the echo of other people's screams in his ears.

On the second Saturday of term, Slughorn catches Harry just as he's entering the Great Hall for dinner and invites him to a supper in his rooms that evening with a group of other students he refers to as the Slug Club. Somewhat appalled by the idea of being part of a club with such a name, he nevertheless can't find a way to politely say no so reluctantly agrees.

The Slug Club turns out to be a collection of people who are either promising individuals or related to socially or politically important or interesting people. Harry fulfils the first qualification by being the Boy Who Lived, but there's also his new year mate Blaise Zabini, though what's so interesting about having a beautiful and rich mother who's seven times a widow, Harry isn't sure. There's also Cormac McLaggen, a Gryffindor seventh year who spends far too much time talking loudly about his uncle, who's friends with the new Minister of Magic, Rufus Scrimgeour. To Harry's great displeasure, Theo is there, his father apparently being almost as well connected with Ministry personnel as McLaggen's uncle, and Harry hates it every time he's brought up. He hates it every time Theo speaks as well, his voice all too similar to his father's. Harry's certain he only manages to make it through Potions, Defence, and Charms—the only classes he and Theo share—because Theo is a quiet student who only ever speaks when called on by a teacher. Avoiding him outside of the classroom is easier, despite their shared house and dorm, as Theo thankfully shows no inclination to become friends with his new year mate.

On the plus side, Hermione and Tyler are part of the Slug Club to make things easier. Despite Harry's excellence in Potions with the Half-Blood Prince's book, Slughorn's duly impressed by Hermione's skill, and Tyler's relation to Marcus, who's Head of the Department of Mysteries, makes him a favourite for Slughorn, although he seems as uninterested in the entire club as Harry is. Ginny Weasley is also there, apparently having impressed Slughorn with her use of the Bat Bogey Hex on a boy who wouldn't stop pestering her.

* * *

The first Hogsmeade weekend is halfway through October. Harry goes with Cid and Tyler; despite the guilt that he feels whenever he's with Tyler, he has missed hanging out with them. But they've barely reached the village and started discussing where to go when a familiar and unwelcome pain burns through Harry's arm.

"You alright?" Tyler asks, noticing his arm twitch.

"Yeah, I, uh, I just remembered I was meant to see James about... something this morning. I'll see you guys later."

"Alright, see you, but tell your dad you would like to have a social life, y'know?"

Harry forces a smile and nods, turning and hurrying back up the path, but slipping off it the moment there's no one else there, hiding behind a tree and swivelling his eye around to make sure no one can see him as he conjures his mask, slips it on and Disapparates.

There's a woman being held in the attic at the Riddle House. Voldemort wants Harry to make her reveal Ministry secrets, but says Harry's to torture her first to ensure he's not 'lost his touch', which Harry wouldn't mind so much if it weren't for the fact that when he follows Lucius up, the attic door opens and Nott comes out.

"Lucius," he greets politely, then notices Harry, half-hiding behind Lucius and hating himself for it, but unable to make himself lift his gaze to meet Nott's leering one. "Evans. Come to join in the fun too? You should have mentioned, Lucius; I wouldn't have fucked that bitch up there. I much prefer a tight little—"

The two windows lining the hallway explode. Nott lets out a shriek of pain as the glass seems to home in on him, sinking into his skin and several pieces almost burying in his eyes and throat. Lucius flinches and Harry trembles all over, but hurriedly fixes the two windows, eliciting another pained noise from Nott as the glass wrenches out of his skin.

"You little bastard," he growls, blood still dripping from his injuries even as he draws his wand and advances on Harry, who cowers behind Lucius and does his best not to kill Nott, reminding himself that if he does then it'll be Sirius and James who pay for it. "When the Dark Lord hears about this, your mutt of a godfather is going to get it, Evans, and then I'm going to bend you over and—"

"Nott," Lucius interrupts sharply. "Harry is one of us now. You have no right to speak to him so vulgarly, and neither he nor Black will suffer for what just happened."

"Lucius—"

"The Dark Lord is aware of his volatile magic," Lucius continues as though Nott hasn't spoken. "He has seen it himself and Severus gave fair warning of it. Harry was forbidden from exacting revenge for the summer, but he is as entitled to defend himself now as are the rest of us. You confronted Harry; you brought this attack on yourself. Be lucky you're walking away with your life."

"I did nothing to him."

"You opened your mouth. Get out of the way; Harry has orders to obey and the Dark Lord won't appreciate it if you cause him to delay and subsequently risk someone from Hogwarts noticing his absence and bringing him under suspicion."

Nott grinds his teeth but stows his wand and stalks past them.

"You know what he did to me?" Harry asks Lucius warily.

"I'm not an idiot, Evans," he says, voice no less sharp than when he'd spoken to Nott. "It's easy enough to figure out."

"You stood up for me."

"I have to work with rapists; I don't have to like them. Don't think it's anything personal; I still don't like you."

Harry's hand shakes when he uses the Cruciatus on the woman. His confrontation with Nott has left him shaken and struggling to give himself over to the cold disdain he managed in the summer. The woman's defiant gaze as Harry approaches her doesn't help, staring at him hatefully despite her defencelessness. Harry wishes he had half as much strength when he'd been the one on the floor.

* * *

Snape sets his coffee mug and _Potions Pioneer_ down when Harry Apparates into the sitting room and promptly collapses, shaking as he lies in a heap with his forehead pressed to the thin carpet, inhaling with the calculated, careful breathing of someone trying to suppress a panic attack or sobs. When Snape slips off the chair and lays a hand gently on the back of Harry's head, he flinches.

"What happened?"

Harry says nothing but Snape doesn't push it, letting him breathe and shake until he's calmed down enough to speak.

"Nott was there," he says in a quiet voice, pulling his arms and legs in closer to his body, and Snape sighs sadly, knowing there's little he can say to help Harry.

"I can't even do anything to him," Harry whispers. "I hate him so much and I want to kill him like I never wanted to kill anyone else, but I just—I'm _scared_ of him." He gives a shaky half sob, half laugh. "I'm not even scared of the Dark Lord," he says, voice full of self-loathing, "but him... he makes me feel so weak and pathetic and _dirty_ and I hate it."

"It wasn't your fault, Harry."

Harry says nothing and Snape feels a hatred towards Nott that he's never felt towards anyone else in his life—not even towards the Marauders.

Harry inhales deeply, shakily, and then gets to his feet. "I should go before someone realises I'm missing."

"I'm surprised he called you while you were at school," Snape replied, also standing.

"Hogsmeade weekend. He probably knew. Oh, I wanted to ask you something. Have you ever heard of someone called the Half-Blood Prince?"

Snape stares at Harry. "Where did you hear that?"

"I melted my cauldron in the first Potions class and it destroyed my book so Slughorn gave me a spare from the cupboard to use until I bought a new one. It's completely covered in notes, like corrections for the instructions and spells and stuff, but there's no name it just says 'Property of the Half-Blood Prince'. Do you know who it is?"

Snape raises an eyebrow. "You may not be the best Potions student, but you're competent enough not to melt cauldrons."

"I had a seizure, dropped a whole load of asphodel into the Draught of Living Death."

"Ah." He turns away, picking up his coffee and tapping it with his wand to warm it up again, lifting it to his mouth and taking a sip before he answers, "I'm the Half-Blood Prince."

"You're a half-blood?" he blurts, then even more incredulously, "You're a _prince?_ "

Snape scowls. "Do you really think I'd have spent fifteen years teaching thick-headed, ungrateful children if I were a prince? It was my mother's maiden name."

The voice in his head laughs. _Looks like you take after your daddy after all!_

"Shut up," he snaps at it. "Not you," he adds to Snape.

"I gathered."

* * *

It's still early enough for Harry to slip into the Three Broomsticks and have a Butterbeer when he gets back to Hogsmeade and he settles down at an empty table at the back to drink it. He's been there maybe five minutes when Sirius comes over and a glance across the room shows James at the bar ordering drinks.

"Can I join you or is drinking with your godfather too embarrassing for teenagers these days?"

Harry gives a small smile. "You can sit. You're not the embarrassing type."

"I can be," he says, clearly taking it as a challenge.

"Please don't."

"Please don't what?" James asks, coming over with a couple of glasses of Firewhiskey, handing one to Sirius and taking a seat.

"He's threatening to try and embarrass me."

"I didn't threaten."

"Sounded like a threat."

"So where you been, kid?"

Harry frowns at Sirius, then his eyes fall on the bracelet around Sirius' wrist as he lifts his drink to his mouth, and Harry mentally kicks himself.

_Should have taken the bracelet off._

"You running off to the same place you kept running off to in the summer?"

Harry shrugs, rolling his Butterbeer bottle between his hands and not looking at him. Sirius sighs.

"Harry, I'm trying to look out for you."

"I know," he mumbles. "I just... sometimes I need to get away."

"Have you thought about talking to someone?" James suggests quietly. "A psychologist like Sam?"

"I don't need to talk to anyone. Sometimes I just need to get away on my own."

"Plenty of places in the castle you can—"

"It's not—you don't get it!"

People look around at his raised voice and he scowls. He drains the last of his drink, sets the empty bottle down and gets up. "I'm going back to the castle."

* * *

"Cid got laid!"

Harry looks up from his breakfast as Tyler sits down opposite him the next morning. "What?" he asks stupidly. He hasn't slept a wink.

"Cid got laid. Jia spent the night in his bed."

"Jia? I thought he was going out with Toni."

"They broke up over the summer, which you'd know if you hung around with us these days."

"Sorry," he apologises half sincerely. He does miss hanging out with them, but spending time with Tyler inevitably leaves him feeling sick with guilt. "Sixth year is busy. I get a lot of work. But did they actually... y'know... or just sleep in the same bed?"

"No, they definitely fucked. Jia's underwear was on the floor."

"That's... good."

"Damn straight it is. He might stop going on about how badly he wants to have sex now."

Cid certainly looks pleased when he comes into breakfast, and when he sees them he comes straight over, sitting down beside Harry with a broad grin and declaring, "I am no longer a virgin."

"Told you," Tyler says smugly. "How was it?"

Cid scoffs. "Awesome. Obviously."

* * *

_Do you really want to do that?_

"Maybe," Harry says, staring at the canopy of his bed. It's only a little after nine at night but he's put up a Silencing Charm on his bed curtains—as he has every night since the first day of term. He doesn't need his dorm mates knowing just how often his nightmares wake him.

_Despite never having any interest in it before. Despite being terrified of letting someone get that physically intimate with you._

"Everyone else says it's good. Cid enjoyed it, Tyler says he enjoys it. I don't want _that_ to be the only time I ever did it. I want to know it can be good and not just hear other people say it is."

_That... well I suppose it's a good a reason as any to participate in an entirely useless activity in which you've never had the slightest interest._

"It's not useless."

'And I have had an interest,' he adds silently, because some things he still won't say aloud even to the voice in his head. 'I masturbate and I've had dreams.'

 _Not since the summer,_ the voice points out, _and those dreams never involve you doing anything with anyone else. You watch, but you're not sexually attracted to other people and before now you've never cared to get sexually intimate with another person. As for the uselessness of sex, it is purposeless unless you did it with a female to create a child. With Draco, as you plan to, it's reduced to nothing more than an act of pleasure._

'Exactly. It's about feeling good. That's not useless.'

 _From a practical standpoint it is. Pleasure has no purpose beyond itself. It doesn't_ do _anything for us in life. Pleasure doesn't solve problems, doesn't teach us, doesn't make us grow. It's an impractical thing._

"Whatever," he mutters aloud. "Just because you don't care about pleasure doesn't mean I don't. I deserve something good, something nice. I've got less than two years to live. Why shouldn't I indulge in useless pleasures?"

* * *

He has another lesson with Dumbledore the following Monday, which gets him out of a Slug Club dinner, and this time Dumbledore shows them two memories. The first is only short and rather than diving into it, Dumbledore merely swirls the contents of the Pensieve and from it rises the ghostly figure of a Caractacus Bruke, a little old man who runs a pawn shop in Knockturn Alley, and he begins discussing Slytherin's locket.

"Yes, we acquired it in curious circumstances. It was brought in by a young witch just before Christmas, oh, many years ago now. She said she needed the gold badly, well, that much was obvious. Covered in rags and pretty far along... Going to have a baby, see. She said the locket had been Slytherin's. Well, we hear that sort of story all the time, 'Oh, this was Merlin's, this was, his favourite teapot,' but when I looked at it, it had his mark all right, and a few simple spells were enough to tell me the truth. Of course, that made it near enough priceless. She didn't seem to have any idea how much it was worth. Happy to get ten Galleons for it. Best bargain we ever made!"

"He only gave her ten galleons?" Neville says indignantly when it's gone, but Harry merely frowns.

"Why didn't she just use magic to get what she needed?"

"I believe, and once again I'm just guessing, that when her husband abandoned her, Merope stopped using magic. I do not think she wanted to be a witch any more, or possibly the despair of her unrequited love sapped her powers—"

"That can happen?" Harry interrupts, horrified.

"I'm afraid so. Whatever the reason, as you'll soon see, she didn't even raise her wand to save her own life."

"You mean she wouldn't stay alive for her son?" Neville asks.

Dumbledore raised his eyebrows. "Could you possibly be feeling sorry for Lord Voldemort?"

Neville frowns thoughtfully. "Not for Voldemort, but for Tom Riddle. His mother abandoned him. She had a choice and she chose to die instead of live for her son. If she'd lived, Tom Riddle might never have grown into Lord Voldemort."

_I wonder what kind of person you'd have grown into if your mother had lived for you._

'My mother didn't have a choice,' Harry thinks, barely managing to keep from talking out loud.

_That's not true though, is it? Our lord and master gave her a choice to stand aside and let you die._

'In which case I'd never have grown up at all.'

When they step into Dumbledore's next memory, Harry can't help commenting on Young Dumbledore's plum coloured velvet suit.

"Nice outfit."

Neville looks almost scandalised that he could say such a thing, but Dumbledore merely chuckles and they follow his memory self to a grim, square building with iron railings around it. Inside they're greeted by a matron who's clearly baffled by Young Dumbledore's fashion choices.

Harry doesn't say anything when he listens to Mrs Cole, the orphanage's matron, talk about how Tom Riddle is an odd child and bully to the other children, but as she talks he can't help thinking it only proves what he said before about orphanages. Tom Riddle was born and raised in one his entire life and it shows. He wonders if he'd have gone the same way if he'd been raised in an orphanage instead of by the Dursleys, whether the abuse he suffered was worth it to keep him from becoming a monster.

_Except you have become a monster. What else would you call someone who tortures innocent women locked up in attics? Oh I know, you have little choice. You know I'm all on board with our chosen path, but you ought not pretend you're something you're not._

They watched Dumbledore meet the young Riddle, and Harry wonders if he had looked so manic when he discovered the power given to him by the demon deal as Riddle looks when Dumbledore tells him that he's a wizard. Watching him, Harry thinks he might have because he gets it, that feverish joy at having power at one's fingertips. Even now, when he's had it for years, there's still something in him that delights in every new spell he learns.

When Riddle asks Dumbledore to prove he's a wizard, Dumbledore sets the wardrobe on fire. When he's put it out, a rattling comes from inside and Riddle opens it up and takes out a box holding a handful of items.

"You will return them to their owners with your apologies," says Dumbledore calmly, putting his wand back into his jacket. "I shall know whether it has been done. And be warned: Thieving is not tolerated at Hogwarts."

Riddle doesn't look remotely abashed. "Yes, sir."

"You will be able to purchase your school things—spellbooks and the like—in Diagon Alley," Dumbledore tells Riddle. "I have your list of books and school equipment with me. I can help you find everything—"

"You're coming with me?"

"Certainly, if you—"

"I don't need you," Riddle says. "I'm used to doing things for myself, I go round London on my own all the time. How do you get to this Diagon Alley—sir?" he adds, catching Dumbledore's eye.

Dumbledore, surprisingly, doesn't insist on accompanying Riddle to Diagon Alley, merely explains how to get there. "You will be able to see it, although Muggles around you—non-magical people, that is—will not. Ask for Tom the barman—easy enough to remember, as he shares your name—"

Riddle gives an irritable twitch, as though trying to displace an irksome fly.

"You dislike the name 'Tom'?"

"There are a lot of Toms," mutters Riddle. Then asks, "Was my father a wizard? He was called Tom Riddle too, they've told me."

"I'm afraid I don't know," says Dumbledore, his voice gentle.

"My mother can't have been magic, or she wouldn't have died," Riddle says, more to himself than Dumbledore. "It must've been him. So—when I've got all my stuff—when do I come to this Hogwarts?"

Back in the office, Harry remains standing while Neville sits, clearly thinking about what he just saw.

"Did you know?" Harry asks Dumbledore.

"That he would become the most dangerous dark wizard of all time? No. I was certainly intrigued by him and his powers. He showed, as you heard, a remarkable level of control for one so young and a desire for cruelty, secrecy, and dominance.

"I want both of you to take particular note of three things today," Dumbledore continued. "Firstly, Tom's contempt for anything that might connect him to other people; secondly, his highly secretive and self-sufficient nature—Lord Voldemort has never had a friend, and I don't believe he has ever wanted one; and lastly, his propensity for collecting trophies."

Harry hangs back when Dumbledore dismisses them, hovering by the fireplace as Neville leaves through the door.

"Is everything alright, Harry?" Dumbledore asks gently.

Harry fidgets, looking at the pot of floo powder, over at Dumbledore, down at his hands, then blurts, "I don't hate my name. Potter, I mean. I never hated it. I just didn't like who I was. I wanted to be someone else. Not—I didn't want to be... Potter was weak. He got beat up and hated and I didn't want to be that so I thought changing my name would help."

Dumbledore considers him, looking over the top of his glasses with an unreadable expression. "Are you afraid of the similarities in your own life to that of Lord Voldemort?"

"His mum died," Harry says, a hint of desperation in his voice. "His dad didn't want him. He changed his name, he was a Slytherin and a Parselmouth, and he had control over his magic even as a kid."

"Have a seat, Harry."

Harry sits.

"You will not become like Lord Voldemort."

"You don't know that," Harry says in a small voice.

"I believe it. The things you listed are nothing more than surface similarities. There are other children with dead mothers and absent fathers, many of whom are, or have been, Slytherins. Magical control even from a young age is not unusual in people of power—I myself could harness my powers to suit my own ends when I was just a child. It does not mean they grow up into Dark Wizards."

"There's still the Parseltongue," Harry points out. "That's a dark power."

"No," Dumbledore says gently but firmly, "it is a power commonly associated with dark wizards, but is not, in and of itself, dark. However, you can speak Parseltongue only because Voldemort can. The night he gave you that scar," he explains when Harry frowns, "Voldemort also transferred some of his powers to you. Not something he intended, I'm sure..."

"The connection," Harry says. "That's the only reason I can speak it?"

"I certainly believe so. Parseltongue is an ability passed along bloodlines. Voldemort has the ability as a descendant of Salazar Slytherin, but you likely only speak it due to the connection between you."

"It still doesn't prove I won't end up like him. I don't want to."

"Whatever similarities you have to Voldemort, you have a great many differences too. As I said to you and Neville both, Voldemort has never had, nor wanted, a friend. You have several very close ones."

"You think my friends will stop me turning into him? Even Draco, when his dad's a Death Eater? You're not worried he's going to turn me to the dark side?"

"I think, were you so easily 'turned to the dark side', you would not have displayed the resilience you did under Voldemort's care this summer," Dumbledore says, and Harry can't look him in the eye. "But it is not who your friends are that is important, just the simple fact that you have them. It shows that you are capable of a magic Voldemort is not—love."

"Love isn't magic."

"On the contrary, love is the most powerful magic to ever exist. It's what saved you the night Voldemort came to Godric's Hollow. Love is what makes you a better, more powerful person than Voldemort could ever hope to be."

"What, do you expect me to hug him to death?"

Dumbledore looks startled at the idea then smiles widely. "I do not, although the shock alone might very well kill him, but, Harry, you must realise that the ability to love is a powerful, powerful thing."

"I don't see how," Harry says truthfully, "but I guess that's one of those things you know because you're older."

"Perhaps," Dumbledore agrees. "But it really is getting late now and you should be returning to your dorm."

* * *

Draco shakes his head, combing his fingers through Harry's hair while Harry lies across his lap in the common room. "Dumbledore is mad. Really, what possible use is there in knowing that the Dark Lord was a thieving bully as a child? Does Dumbledore expect you to convince the Dark Lord of the error of his ways or something so that he turns himself in? Are you sure he hasn't just lost what little sanity he had and is wasting your time?"

Harry shrugs. "It's Dumbledore, so maybe. It is kind of interesting though. Presumably he will teach me _something_ useful eventually."

Draco scoffs. "Sure. I'll believe that when it happens."


	73. Chapter 73

Harry reads. He knows how sex works of course, but he wants to find out how it's supposed to be done right. He very briefly entertains the idea of asking Sirius, who undoubtedly has plenty of experience-driven tips and information, but the mere thought makes his face burn up, so he settles for asking the Room of Requirement to provide him with information. He's not searching the library for it. He's not even sure he can find this kind of information in the Hogwarts library, but there's no way in hell he's ever going to risk being caught by _anyone_ with a book about sex.

He also reads up on the Draught of Peace. Aside from not being sure he'll manage to get through it without one—just reading about it is enough to elicit unpleasant memories and he has to stop every so often and distract his mind—he doesn't want the voice to make snide comments while he's doing it, but it'd be beyond embarrassing if it turns out the potion affects his ability to get an erection.

The first Quidditch match of the season is the second weekend of November. Slytherin play Gryffindor and Draco catches the snitch but they still lose by ten points. Draco's not pleased, chewing out the rest of the team for not playing better. The misery of the team and the Gryffindors obvious joy leaves the Slytherin table a miserable place to be at lunch. When Draco gets up to leave without finishing his meal, Harry follows him out, grabbing his hand in the Entrance Hall and tugging him towards the main staircase.

"Where are we going?" Draco asks grumpily.

"Some place to chill out."

"Where?"

"You'll see."

The Room of Requirement gives them a room not dissimilar to the one in which Harry and Neville told Hermione about the prophecy, dark, warm, and inviting, only instead of beanbags and a coffee table, there's just an overly large, squishy lounge sofa with plenty of cushions. Harry flicks the lock on the door and pulls Draco over to the sofa, flopping onto it and pulling him down beside him. Without talking, they arrange themselves with the cushions until they're both comfy, Draco on his back with Harry on his side, head on Draco's chest and one arm slung across his stomach.

"How have I gone five years without ever knowing this room exists?" Draco asks softly. The only other sound in the room is the crackling fire and it feels wrong to speak too loudly.

"Best kept secret at Hogwarts," Harry tells him. "This room turns into whatever you ask it for."

"You mean this isn't all the room looks like?"

"Nope. It won't really change now we're in it, but outside you just walk in front of the wall three times and think about what you want and it'll give it to you."

"What did you ask it for to get this?"

"Somewhere to relax."

"It certainly came through. Have you used this place a lot?"

"Not as much as I used to. I lived in here for a year."

"When?"

"Your first year," he says and explains his time spent living invisibly.

"You never fail to surprise me, Harry."

"You want to know something else surprising?"

"Sure, why not?"

"My real dad is Snape."

"Sna- _Professor Snape?_ "

Harry nods.

"Severus Snape is your _father_ ," Draco says, voice full of disbelief.

"Was."

"Oh, shit, sorry. That was insensitive," he apologises, then: "Oh god, you saw him die."

Harry nods again.

"Did the Dark Lord know?"

"Yes."

"And he still made you watch? That's..."

"It's over," Harry says quietly, and Draco says nothing more on the matter.

They lay in silence, just passing the time in quiet warmth. Draco's fingers comb through Harry's hair and he relaxes into him, feeling safe and warm, and after a while he's confident enough to say quietly, "Draco, can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"Have you ever had sex?"

There's a pause where Harry resists the urge to look at Draco's face, then: "No."

"Even with Tyler? I don't mind," he adds quickly. "I won't be jealous or angry or whatever. I know you've done... stuff."

"We've exchanged hand jobs and blow jobs, but that's it. We never fucked. Why are you asking?"

Harry shrugs. Draco shifts his head to look down at him.

"Did you want to try... _stuff_?"

Harry scowls at the slightly mocking tone. "No."

"Okay."

They fall silent again for a few minutes, but the issue lingers on Harry's mind and eventually he has to ask, "Would you want to do that kind of stuff with me?"

"I'd love to."

"Really?" Harry asks, unable to keep the surprise from his voice, lifting his head to look at Draco.

"I've wanted to for longer than we've been going out, Harry. You know that."

"I know, I just... I thought... you might not want to. Anymore."

Draco pushes himself up on his elbows, frowning at him, and Harry sits up but keeps his gaze on Draco's chest.

"Why wouldn't I?"

Harry shrugs, but a thought occurs to Draco and he sits up properly. "You thought I wouldn't because of the rape? That I'd think you were... I don't know, tainted or something?"

Harry doesn't answer but the slight flinch and the flush in his cheeks says everything. Draco reaches out to cup his face in both hands, lifting Harry's head and holding it until Harry reluctantly meets his gaze.

"You're not, Harry. _You're not._ "

"I feel dirty," he whispers, ducking his head. "Like I can still feel him on me and I hate it. No matter how much I shower I can't scrub him away. How can you even stand to touch me?"

"Because you're not dirty. He's not on you. He—" he breaks off, struggling to find the right thing to say, then it comes to him. "If you can't wash him away then maybe having me touch you can... replace him, sort of. That'd be okay, wouldn't it? Having me on you instead?"

Harry hesitates then nods, glancing at him nervously, and Draco gives a small smile.

"Okay. Good. So any _stuff_ you want to do, you just say."

"Not—I don't want to right now," he says quickly.

"That's fine. Whenever you're ready."

When they're cuddled together again, Harry murmurs, "You're not going to let me forget the whole 'stuff' thing, are you?"

Draco's mouth quirks with a suppressed smile. "Dunno what you're talking about."

In the following silence, Harry shuts his eyes and snuggles closer, but silently thinks, 'You've been surprisingly quiet.'

_You know I don't like this sappy romantic crap._

'Exactly. I thought you'd be needling me about unnecessary pleasures and stuff.'

_Yes, well, it appears not to be entirely unnecessary. I had to endure Nott and Yaxley too. If Draco can help get rid of that unpleasant itch in our skin, I'll keep quiet about the whole thing._

Later, when they leave for dinner, Harry remembers something else he'd been meaning to ask Draco.

"Slughorn's holding a Christmas party on the last day of term and we're allowed to bring a guest. Will you come with me?"

"Hmph, I don't think I'm good enough for Slughorn," Draco mutters. He isn't happy about not being involved with the Slug Club, especially when Theo is a part of it too, though Harry doesn't see why. He'd gladly not be a part of it.

"You're good enough for me. Please come, I don't want to go on my own."

"Tell you what, I'll come to Slughorn's party if you come with me to the Manor for the holidays."

Harry stops walking, looking at him in surprise. "Really? Won't you mother mind?"

"She said it's fine."

Harry smiles. "Alright."

* * *

"Harry, I need to tell you some- are you still using that book?" Hermione interrupts herself, sitting down beside Harry in the library and dumping her book-laden bag on the table with a thump. "Haven't you bought a new one yet?"

"Yes," Harry confesses, looking up from his copy of _Advanced Potion-Making_. "I Wished it to look worn out and gave it to Slughorn so I could keep this one."

Hermione's lips purse. "I don't trust this Prince character. I realised the other day that taking instructions from a book... well, remember Riddle's diary?"

"This isn't like that, Hermione. It's not like it's got a piece of him in it, it's just notes he made."

"Or she," Hermione says. "I think that handwriting looks like a girl's."

Harry glances down at the book, a smile spreading over his face. He sniggers then has to drop his quill and clap his hands over his mouth to keep his laughter from escaping and upsetting Madam Pince.

"Well it could be!" Hermione whispers indignantly. "Just because they know a lot about potions doesn't mean it's a boy!"

Harry shakes his head, still too overwhelmed with giggles to correct the assumption. Hermione huffs, pulling out her own copy of _Advanced Potion-Making_ and some parchment to begin work on the essay Slughorn set them.

"It's not that I don't think it could be a girl," Harry tells her when he's got his giggles under control. "It's just that I know it's not."

"Oh really?" Hermione asks snottily without even pausing in her writing.

"Yes, because I know who the Prince is."

That gets her attention. "Who?"

"Snape."

"Snape? But how do you know that?"

"I asked Sirius and James about the name," he lies. "They were in the same year as Snape. They told me it was a nickname he gave himself, and I found out his mother's maiden name was Prince. So you can stop worrying about it, it's nothing dangerous. It's just..."

"Your dad's," she says softly.

He shrugs, glancing around nervously even though she spoke barely loud enough for him to hear, and looks down at the book. "Yeah," he agrees quietly, then clears his throat and says, "Did you say you needed to tell me something?"

"What? Oh, yes, it's about Slughorn's party."

"Has it been cancelled?" he asks hopefully.

"No, it's about your date."

Harry frowns. "About Draco?"

"I thought so. It's just no one really knows who you're taking," she explains at his confused look. "Of course, the assumption is that you're going with him but there are a few people who are hoping otherwise. I heard some girls talking in the bathroom earlier about trying to slip you a love potion so you'll take them."

Harry's hand jerks, blotching the parchment, but he barely notices. " _What?_ Who? Why would anything think I'm _not_ going with Draco? He's my boyfriend. Love potions aren't even allowed at Hogwarts! Sorry," he adds quietly to the passing Madam Pince when she shushes him.

 _I think we ought to watch what we eat and drink in future,_ the voice mutters uncomfortably. _You're bad enough with Draco; I dread to think what you—what_ we _—would be like under the influence of a love potion. No doubt it'd affect me too, which is a horrifying thought_.

Harry agrees wholeheartedly.

"When has anyone ever cared about the rules?" Hermione says scornfully.

"Who is it anyway? I mean, who'd be so desperate to go out with _me_ they'd resort to love potions?"

Hermione pauses in writing her own essay to look at him with surprise. "Surely you realise people fancy you? Malfoy's going out with you."

"Well, yeah, but that's Draco. He knows me. Everyone else just thinks I'm that crazy Slytherin kid."

"You _were_ that crazy Slytherin kid. Now you're the wronged Boy Who Lived. You've been proven right about saying Voldemort's back and with your expulsion turning out to be a sham—you're a hero again. It's not like you're unattractive, either," she adds and his sceptical expression turns startled. "Skinny and you clearly need more sleep, but you're not terrible looking. Once you've got past the initial surprise, your eyes are quite pretty being two different colours and you've got the kind of face that elicits sympathy; they all just want to cuddle and comfort you, and of course there's more than a few that think Malfoy's hoodwinked you somehow so they just want to save you from the evil Death Eater's son."

The surprise was sliding towards amusement and he's about to ask teasingly if she fancies him, but at that he scowls.

"I don't need their bloody pity," he mutters angrily, "and that's just bloody ridiculous. Draco's not hoodwinked me. You don't think that, do you?"

"Of course not. Sometimes I wonder if you've hoodwinked him—I'm joking!" she adds hurriedly, noticing his horrified expression.

"You can't—I mean, that's—why would even _say_ that?"

"Because we've been sharing a workbench in Potions for over three months and he hasn't called me a Mudblood once."

She's right, Harry realises with a start, not having even noticed.

"I guess you've just been a good influence on him."

* * *

Harry makes it to the last day of term without being dosed with a love potion and at eight o'clock that evening he and Draco make their way from Slytherin up to Slughorn's office. Slughorn greets him enthusiastically and even manages a polite greeting to Draco before dragging him over to meet some author who wants to write his biography. Harry's more interested in the vampire that's with the author, because he's never met one before and it's kind of cool, except he looks like he wants to eat a couple of girls who are at the party.

"I'm really not interested in a biography," Harry tells the author, "and I've just seen a friend of mine, so if you'll excuse me..."

Without giving the man time to argue, Harry grabs Draco's hand and drags him over to the drinks table where Tyler's standing with his arm around the waist of Rebecca DiCamillo, the Gryffindor prefect from their year.

"Hey, Tyler."

"Hey, Harry, Draco. This is Becca. Becca, this is Harry and Draco."

"I know," she says with a broad smile at Harry, but ignoring Draco. "It's nice to meet you."

"I wish I could say the same," Draco remarks, shifting so he's turned slightly towards Harry, letting go of his hand to instead rest it on the small of Harry's back. "Harry, would you care to dance?"

Surprised by Draco's curt attitude, Harry nevertheless agrees and when they're in the middle of the small area of the room that constitutes the dance floor, he says, "You shouldn't be mean to Tyler's date."

"I didn't like the way she looked at you, and he shouldn't have brought a Gryffindor."

"Are you getting jealous?" he teases. "Worried I'm going to run off with someone prettier than you?"

"As if. No one's prettier than me."

"That's very true," Harry agrees and laughs when Draco grins smugly.

Later that evening Draco gets into a conversation with Slughorn about his grandfather, who Slughorn apparently attended school with, and Harry's attention drifts from the conversation, letting his magical eye rove around the room. Sirius and James are across the dance floor, James talking animatedly to Professor Trelawney while Sirius tips something into the glass in her hand, then he notices Harry watching and gives a cheeky wink. Harry rolls his eyes but smiles slightly, eye moving around to look elsewhere. He sees Hermione and Neville dancing together and waves briefly, but when his magical eye passes over the wall to his left, he gasps, jerking and almost spilling his Butterbeer.

"You alright, m'boy?" Slughorn asks.

"Wha- uh, yes. Fine."

Slughorn nods and continues talking. Draco shoots Harry a questioning glance, not missing the slight redness filling Harry's cheeks, but Harry just shakes his head slightly, lifting the Butterbeer to his mouth even as his eye, almost against his will, drifts back to the wall, on the other side of which Becca sits on a table, her dress hitched up around her hips, Tyler knelt in front of her with his face buried in her crotch.

"You alright?" Draco asks when his conversation's over and Slughorn moves on, shifting to shield Harry from the rest of the room, his face slightly worried.

"Are you sure? Is there something on the other side of that wall? You keep looking at it."

"Um," Harry says, cheeks growing hot.

"What is it?"

"Nothing. It doesn't matter."

"It must be something."

"Everything alright here, boys?"

Draco shifts, turning and looking at Sirius, who flicks his eyes between the two of them, gaze narrowing slightly as he notices Harry's red cheeks and refusal to meet his eyes. "Harry?"

"Fine," he says a little hoarsely, then clears his throat. "Fine," he says again. "Really."

Sirius doesn't look convinced.

"I hope you haven't forgotten what I said in the summer," he says to Draco. "Hurt him—"

"Sirius!" Harry hisses, anger pushing down his embarrassment at what he's seen ( _watched and enjoyed,_ the voice murmurs) so he can lift his gaze to Sirius' face. "Will you give it a rest?"

"Excuse me for worrying about my godson when it looks like his boyfriend is being pushy."

"I was not!" Draco objects, offended.

"He's never been pushy," Harry tells Sirius angrily, grabbing Draco's hand and pulling him away. "So just keep your nose out of my business. God, he's so annoying sometimes," he adds in a grumble as they leave the office. He's lost what little interest he had in the party.

"I get the feeling he's never going to trust me," Draco remarks.

"It's stupid."

"It's understandable really."

"Oh, don't! I'm trying to be angry at him, you shouldn't be taking his side!"

Draco quirks a smile, pulling him close and slipping both arms around his waist. "How about a kiss to make up for it?"

"Better be a good one," Harry replies, wrapping his own arms around Draco's neck and leaning toward the kiss, only for it to be interrupted before it even starts. The door to Harry's right opens and Tyler and Becca stumble out, exchanging sloppy kisses themselves.

"Mmm, you are as good as everyone says," Becca murmurs against Tyler's mouth.

"Damn straight," Tyler replies, then notices Harry and Draco. "Hey, guys. Classroom's free if you want it," he says with a wink, tugging Becca past them and back into the party. Any interest Becca might have had in Harry is long gone, all her attention on Tyler now.

"Well now I know why you were going so red. You saw them fucking?"

"Not, um... not exactly. He was..."

"Getting a blow job?"

"He was giving oral to her," he whispers then presses his face to Draco's shoulder, face bright red as Draco chuckles.

"You're so easily embarrassed."

"Shut up," Harry mumbles into his shoulder, hitting him lightly.

"Did you enjoy it?" Draco teases. "Some people like that, watching other people... oh," he says, the humour draining from his voice. He shifts slightly, feeling a pressure against his thigh. "You, um, you do like..." He clears his throat then says a little hoarsely, "I was only teasing."

Harry says nothing, nor does he take his burning face from Draco's shoulder.

"Do you, uh, I mean, I can... I can help. With that. If you want."

He honestly doesn't expect the small nod Harry gives. "Really?"

In answer, Harry pulls back, face still red and eyes averted, but he takes Draco's hand and tugs him into the classroom Tyler and Becca were in, sparing a thought to Wish the door locked and then stepping close to Draco and hesitantly leaning in to kiss him.

It's a test for himself, more than anything, Harry acknowledges. The voice is right that he isn't sexually attracted to other people, but he wants to have sex, to know it can be good. But he also knows he won't be able to do that if he can't stand being touched intimately, so he lets Draco touch him to satisfy the arousal brought on by the sight of Tyler and Becca, and to discover if he can bare it before he decides to take things all the way.

Draco keeps his eyes on Harry's face the entire time his hand is down Harry's trousers, searching for any sign that he wants it to stop, that he's not enjoying himself, but there is none. Harry's lower lip is caught between his teeth, his cheeks are flushed, his eyes shut, and he looks beautiful. His hands clutch at Draco's robes and when he comes it's with a gasp and a shudder.

"Okay?"

Harry nods, leaning his head forward to rest against Draco's shoulder, and just stays like that for a moment, catching his breath.

 _Thank god that's over,_ the voice grumbles and Harry feels a spike of spitefulness against it, because he enjoyed it far more than he expected. He moves his hands down Draco's sides and towards the front of his trousers. The voice shouts an objection and Harry ignores it.

"What are you doing?" Draco asks quietly.

"Returning the favour."

"You don't have to if you don't want to."

"I do."

"Sure? I can manage myself if you prefer."

Harry's hands pause and Draco feels a tug of disappointment, but then Harry lifts his head, nervously meeting Draco's gaze and asking hesitantly, "Can I... can I watch?"

"Watch?" Draco repeats blankly.

"Watch you... nevermind. It doesn't matter. I'll—"

"You can."

"Wha- uh, I can?"

Draco nods. "Let's—can we go up to that room?"

* * *

Harry stands at the end of the over-large sofa in the Room of Requirement, face flushed, hands clenching and unclenching at his sides, breathing hard, eyes fixated on Draco, who's sprawled on the sofa, robes and shirt discarded, firelight dancing across his skin, his own gaze fixed on Harry's face, his lips parted, and one hand curled around his cock.

When Draco's come, Harry moves forward, crawling over him and leaning down to catch his mouth in a hungry kiss.

"Thank you," he murmurs against Draco's mouth.

"For what?"

"Letting me watch. Being beautiful. Being amazing. Putting up with me."

Draco gives a huff of laughter. "I love you, you don't have—shit. That's—I—"

"Do you mean that?" Harry asks, drawing back with an expression half doubtful and half hopeful.

"Yes," Draco says, tone almost challenging, like he expects Harry to laugh at him for saying it.

"Even though I'm a Death Eater?"

"Yes."

"Even though Sirius and James don't like you?"

"They'll just have to deal with it."

"Even though I'm crazy and have a voice in my head, even though I've been tortured and... and raped, and I've done really bad things, and—"

Draco reaches up and grabs his face, drawing him down to make their lips meet, kissing him firmly and breaking it only when Harry relaxes.

"I love you, Harry," he says quietly. "I don't care what you've done or what's been done to you or about the voice in your head. I love you."

Harry pulls his head from Draco's hands, lowering himself to lay flat against Draco's body and pressing his face into the crook of Draco's neck.

"I love you too."


	74. Chapter 74

"Harry, can I have a quick word before you go?"

Harry turns to Sirius with a sigh. "Look, if this is about Draco again, I don't want to hear it. I'm going, okay? And I'll be fine."

"I wanted to apologise, actually," Sirius says, drawing Harry off to one side of the Entrance Hall. "James chewed me out a bit last night about that, reckons I've been too harsh on Malfoy and need to give it a rest."

"You do."

"Yeah, I'm getting that. I'm not even going to ask if you're sure about going there for the holidays, but just let me do one thing, will you?"

"What?"

Sirius takes his hand, drawing his wand and tapping it to Harry's medical bracelet. "Portkey, same trigger word as last time, it'll bring you straight to our rooms. I've got Dumbledore's permission for it. I might have to accept that you choose to date him, but you have to accept that I choose to be an over-protective godfather, alright?"

It's fair, he supposes. "Alright," he agrees, giving him a quick hug. "See you after the holidays. Merry Christmas, Sirius."

"Merry Christmas, kid. Have a good one."

* * *

Harry's not really surprised when his Mark burns that evening, but he does wonder if Voldemort knows he's staying at Malfoy Manor or if he expected Harry to sneak out of the castle despite the substantial extra protections placed on it since the summer. He leaves Draco with a kiss and a promise he'll be back soon.

Voldemort's in a bad mood when Harry gets there. A week ago Aurors stopped him from killing a French witch called Adrienne De Sauveterre who was in the country to begin negotiations with the Ministry about lending their Aurors to Britain to help in the war. Despite the assassination attempt, the negotiations haven't been put off, but De Sauveterre is being housed in the same block of flats as Earl Jugson, a portly, dozey looking Death Eater who has some mid-ranking position in the Ministry's Department of Magical Games and Sports. Voldemort wants Harry to go with him, sneak up to De Sauveterre's flat, and kill her.

"Alone?" Harry asks.

"You have proven yourself, Harry, and this mission requires stealth. Taking Lucius or anyone else will only make it harder. I expect to hear from you shortly. Do not disappoint me."

"Yes, my lord," Harry murmurs.

He has to hold Jugson's arm to Apparate to his flat and he lets go as soon as they've reappeared in the sitting room, moving away from him. He doesn't trust any of the Death Eaters, but Jugson doesn't seem to have the least bit of interest in him. He goes to his mantelpiece and takes a cigarette tin from the top, opening it up and taking a pre-rolled cigarette from it, putting it in his mouth and touching his wand to the tip to light it.

"Want one?" he asks in gruff voice. Harry shakes his head and is thankful when there's a knock at the door, turning invisible and following Jugson to it in preparation to slip out when whoever's outside comes in, as planned. But Nott is on the other side and instead of moving aside when he enters and giving room for Harry to pass by, he jerks the door out of Jugson's grip and slams it shut.

"Where is he?" he growls, eyes roving over the room. "Where's the little bastard?"

"Somewhere," Jugson replies with wary confusion, glancing around. "He's supposed to slip out, Frederick. You'll bring suspicion on us."

"I don't care. I know he's responsible and I'm going to wring his scrawny little neck. Show yourself, Evans!"

Harry presses himself to the wall, not making a sound.

"What is wrong with you, Frederick?" Jugson demands. "He has orders from the Dark Lord; let him get on with him."

"Not until he pays for what he did!"

"What did he do?"

Nott's face turns blotchy as colour rises in his cheeks. "He knows," he replies curtly. Harry, scared and confused and worried as to his task, doesn't care to listen to anymore. He makes a Wish that sends Nott stumbling aside to trip and fall flat on his face, then darts forwards and leaves the flat before either man can react. There's no one in the hall outside to see the door opening, thankfully, and he hurries down it, listening hard for the sound of the door opening behind him but hearing nothing.

Adrienne De Sauveterre's room is on the top floor. Harry meets no one on the stairs going up, but when he reaches the top floor he knows instantly which room is hers—two Aurors sit outside the door, smokeless cigarettes between their lips as they play poker on the floor. Harry Wishes them unconscious as he approaches and they slump against the wall, cigarettes falling from their lips, and he spares a thought to put them out so they don't set their robes on fire. The door opens with a touch of his fingers and he moves silently inside. De Sauveterre is in the bathroom brushing her teeth and Harry kills her with a Wish, the snap of her neck cracking followed by a thud as her body falls.

To his horror, when he returns to the Riddle House, he finds Nott in the sitting room with Voldemort. He stops just inside the room, looking between them tensely, preparing to attack or flee, but when Voldemort's gaze narrows he reluctantly moves forward and drops to his knee in front of him.

"Is she dead?"

"Yes, my lord."

"Stand up, Harry."

Harry rises, still hyper aware of Nott standing just a few feet to his right.

"Where were you yesterday afternoon?"

"At Hogwarts," Harry answers, wondering if the question is related to what Nott tried to accuse him of. "In classes."

"Satisfied, Frederick?"

"My lord, he could easily have left a duplicate of himself," Nott objects. "His freakish powers—"

" _Crucio!_ "

Harry jumps then stares in shock as Nott collapses to the floor, screaming. Voldemort doesn't hold the curse for long and when he's done he speaks harshly to Nott.

"I am not here to deal with your petty squabbles, Frederick. You've given any number of people reason to take your manhood; I will not have my time wasted with you trying to discredit my people."

"Yes, my lord," Nott rasps.

"You're dismissed, both of you."

* * *

Despite the hour, Snape is drinking a coffee as he reads when Harry arrives in Spinner's End. He looks over Harry calculatingly, watching him remove his Death Eater mask and Wish it away.

"Someone attacked Nott," Harry says by way of greeting, glancing at the sofa but deciding to remain standing.

"Did they?"

Harry nods. "He, um... lost his manhood. That's what the Dark Lord said."

"That's a very politic way to put it," Snape notes.

"Nott accused me."

"In front of the Dark Lord?"

"To him. He did it while I was doing a job. I got back and he was there and the Dark Lord asked where I was yesterday. Nott said I could have been lying about being in Hogwarts and the Dark Lord tortured him for wasting his time."

"That's no surprise," Snape remarks. "Nott's been a Death Eater long enough to have realised that would happen. But I assume the Dark Lord doesn't believe it was you?"

Harry nods. "Was it you?"

"Yes," Snape answers calmly. When Harry looks surprised at the brazen answer, he adds, "That man raped you and you are unable to take your own revenge; I was not going to let it go unpunished. I 'removed his manhood' for you; his death is my own revenge for making me watch."

Harry sits then, frowning at Snape. "His death?"

"Assuming my calculations on the poison are correct, and they usually are, he should be dead by Easter, but he's my first human test subject so I can't be certain how long it will take his internal organs to decay compared to the rats."

"You poisoned him?" Harry gasps. Snape sets down his coffee and leans forward in his seat.

"Are you going to tell me he doesn't deserve it?"

"No," Harry answers without hesitation. "I just... I guess I never really thought about you killing people. I know you have, you've told me, but... I don't know. It's different to actually know someone you've killed."

"Technically, I haven't killed him yet."

Harry leans back in his chair, trying to figure out he feels about this revelation.

 _Glad_ , the voice says. _We're glad that bastard is going to die and even more glad he's lost his dick, though perhaps disappointed that we didn't get to do it ourselves._

"That's true," Harry murmurs, then glances up to see Snape watching him. "Thanks, I guess," he says.

"Don't thank me," he replies, picking up his coffee again. "Had I been a better father, it wouldn't have been necessary in the first place. What was your job tonight?"

"A French witch who's here to lend Aurors to our Ministry or something," Harry tells him.

"Adrienne De Sauveterre? The _Prophet_ reported the first assassination attempt," he adds when Harry glances at him.

"I don't read the paper much these days. Have you been getting it delivered here?"

"I'm not an idiot," Snape replies with a scowl. "I take Fuller's when I deliver the potions to him. Speaking of which, I'm going to need some more hairs from Porter, at the store."

Harry holds his hand out, palm up, and makes a Wish. Several short grey hairs appear in his hand.

"You're sure they're his?" Snape asks, taking them.

"Yeah. I should get back before Draco starts worrying. I'm staying at Malfoy Manor for the holiday."

Snape raises an eyebrow as Harry stands. "Is that wise?"

Harry rolls his eyes. "You're as bad as Sirius," he says, Disapparating with a crack and leaving Snape feeling thoroughly disgruntled at being compared to Sirius Black.

* * *

"This De Sauveterre's a lucky woman."

Harry chokes on his water. "W-w-what?" he stutters between coughs, sat at the breakfast table the next morning.

"Adrienne De Sauveterre," Draco says from behind his paper. "It says here she's survived two assassination attempts."

"T-two?"

"The first was a week ago; apparently she was nearly killed flooing in from France, now it says that last night some Auror being used as a decoy to try and catch the one responsible for the first attempt was killed. Neck was snapped; the Aurors on watch saw nothing."

"Your father always said the Ministry's Auror training was severely lacking," Narcissa remarks, sipping at her tea.

 _Oh dear_ , the voice says, and Harry thinks he might be sick.

He's not the least bit surprised to feel his Mark burn a few hours later. He leaves with his stomach in knots and half an hour later he's back after a round of Cruciatus and a seizure. Voldemort doesn't care that it isn't Harry's fault the woman he killed was a decoy; he's angry and Harry pays the price.

"It was you, wasn't it?"

Harry doesn't need to ask Draco to clarify. They're in his room, Draco sat on the bed while Harry lies with his head in Draco's lap, worn out and content to merely lie there with Draco's fingers combing through his hair.

"Well?"

"You promised you'd never ask me about what he makes me do."

Draco frowns. "I worry about you."

"You and Sirius should start a club. Invite Hermione, too. She keeps saying I need more sleep and to eat more."

"You do. You've lost weight since summer."

Harry doesn't answer, but silently he's a little bit glad.

* * *

"Care to watch something interesting?"

Harry takes his eyes from the full moon outside the window on Christmas night and looks over at Draco, who he hadn't even heard come in from the bathroom. "Like what?"

"Like me," Draco says, walking over to the bed and perching on the edge. He's wearing nothing but a towel, wrapped around his waist. "I'm feeling horny and you like to watch, so watch me."

"Oh," Harry says, mouth suddenly dry as he watches a bead of water slide down Draco's torso. "Won't you... I mean, you just showered. You'll get... messy."

Draco smiles. "I can have another shower. You could join me if you like."

Harry makes a strange noise, hit by the sudden image of Draco masturbating in the shower.

"I'd say you like that idea," Draco remarks, eyes on front of Harry's trousers, and Harry flushes, shifting.

"Shower," he says weakly, then clears his throat and tries again. "I want to watch you... y'know... in the shower. If that's okay."

It's as good as he imagines, leaning against Draco's sink with his eyes fixed on the boy in the shower.

"You can do yourself," Draco gasps, glancing sideways at Harry, water steaming down his face. Harry just shakes his head, hands rubbing at his thighs, eyes never once leaving Draco's body. "I want you to. I want you to—"

"After," Harry says hoarsely, unwilling to admit that for all he enjoys watching other people he's embarrassed at the thought of being watched. "Just—" he breaks off, biting his lip as Draco moans, his free hand clenching, muscles in his back and legs tightening as he gets himself off. Harry thinks he's never seen anything so beautiful.

After, Draco sucks him off and Harry is thankful he overcomes his hesitancy and says yes because it's _amazing_. Afterwards they lie in bed, Draco still naked but Harry's wearing a pair of pyjama bottoms, trailing his fingers over Draco's chest.

"Does it bother you?"

"Does what bother me?"

"That I like watching you."

"No," Draco replies honestly. "I would like to one day get your hands on me, but as I'd pretty much resigned myself to never getting more than kisses from you, even this much is good."

"I'm sorry," Harry mumbles into his shoulder.

"Don't be," Draco says, kissing the top of Harry's head. "I won't push anything. We'll do whatever you're comfortable with."

* * *

His Mark burns again on New Year's Eve.

He's to go with Lucius, Bellatrix, and Dolohov to a vampire den to negotiate the possibility of an alliance, taking with them two young men and women who are to be offered as gifts. He's terrified by the thought of meeting an entire den of vampires who will probably quite like to eat him, and disgusted that they're handing over four defenceless and innocent people to be eaten, but at the same time he's thrilled because Voldemort says the head vampire they're meeting is Gabriel Valentine, who is not only supposed to be the oldest vampire in Britain but also possibly responsible for the sixteenth century European vampire uprising. The idea of meeting such a historically famous figure makes him positively giddy.

Gabriel Valentine and his vampires live in a huge Victorian manor just outside of Nottingham. Harry and the others are greeted by a woman who introduces herself as Erica and leads them through to an actual throne room. Harry swallows thickly as he enters and the others seem equally nervous. There are at least thirty vampires in the room, all of them with their eyes fixed hungrily on the eight new humans.

Valentine is easy to spot. He lounges in an extravagant gold throne, watching the Death Eaters approach with a careless smile. He's exceptionally handsome despite the drained pallor and shadowed eyes, well dressed in an expensive three piece suit, the jacket of which hangs over the arm of a butler stood a little behind the throne, while his sleeves are rolled halfway up strong forearms.

Lucius, the chosen spokesperson, gestures to the two men and women they've brought. "A gift from the Dark Lord."

Valentine rises from his throne, moving forwards so smoothly he seems to glide. Harry watches him go to each of the 'gifts' and look them over critically, leaning close to inhale deeply then moving on to the next. He stops in front of one of the women, who's quivering with fear, and takes one of her hands, lifting it to his mouth and biting into her wrist, never once taking his eyes from the woman's face. She whimpers but doesn't fight, but Valentine doesn't feed for long. He lets her hand drop carelessly, licking a smear of blood from his lips and gesturing with his hand. Immediately four of the vampires move forward, taking the 'gifts' and drawing them into the crowd. They don't fight.

"Bland," Valentine says with a voice like honey and a tone of utter boredom. "Your Dark Lord has little concept of taste, but we will accept them. What are his terms, Lucius Malfoy?"

Harry only half listens as Lucius talks about vampire rights, feeding privileges, and other lies that Voldemort is offering to tempt the vampires into joining him. He's enamoured by Valentine, drawn to him even.

 _Vampire seduction_ , the voice murmurs but it doesn't sound concerned. _Vampires who were wizards can give off seductive auras. The older the vampire, the stronger the aura._

Harry just hums an agreement.

"Your Dark Lord presents a good deal," Valentine remarks and Harry thinks he could spend hours listening to that voice. "But it can be sweetened."

"What's your request?" Lucius asks politely, and Valentine turns away from him.

Harry doesn't move when Valentine steps in front of him. He's more than a head taller than Harry and considerably broader; even without the supernatural strength vampires have he could likely crush Harry without even breaking a sweat. When Valentine's finger brushes along his jaw, he shivers.

"Tell me your name, child."

"Harry Evans," he answers without even thinking about it, and there's a ripple of murmurs. Valentine's eyes flick to the scar on Harry's forehead.

"How unexpected, that the Boy Who Lived should be subservient to the mortal Dark Lord. You have power, child. I can smell it. You ask what I request, Lucius—a taste of this child, for now."

Lucius hesitates. That isn't one of the allowances Voldemort gave, but it's a small thing. Harry doesn't take his gaze from Valentine's. He feels like he's trapped, drowning in those electric blue eyes and completely uncaring of it.

"A taste," Lucius agrees slowly. "Nothing more."

"Of course," Valentine murmurs.

It only hurts for a moment, the pricking of teeth, then he feels only a firm pressure on his neck, but the rest of him is suddenly super sensitive. He's hyper aware of the arm around his waist, the hand cradling the back of his head, the cold, hard body pressed against him. His ears are filled with the rushing sound of blood and his heart pounds inside his chest. He sighs softly, eyes closing, willing to give himself entirely to this creature—eager to, even. He wants to give himself up, to be taken by it in every way possible, to let it be the only thing in his world that matters.

"I want him," Valentine declares after, still holding Harry against him as he looks over to Lucius. Harry leans into him, eyes still closed, looking like there's nowhere he'd rather be. "Tell your Dark Lord I want everything he offers and this child, then my vampires will be at his disposal."

"Respectfully, Lord Valentine, Evans is not on the table. So to speak," he adds, regretting his choice of words.

"Are you in a position to declare that, Lucius? Surely such a decision is to be made by your Dark Lord himself?"

"I... yes."

"Then go. Send one of your people to ask him now. We will await his decision."

Lucius glances at Bellatrix and Dolohov, unsure of what to do. This isn't expected at all.

"Unless," Valentine says smoothly, "you would prefer to take the child and leave to inform your lord that you did not do your utmost to try and gain my assistance. I hear his reaction to failure is painful."

It's enough. Lucius turns to Dolohov. "Go."

"Look at me, child."

Harry opens his eyes. Valentine's hand shifts from the back of his head to cup his chin, thumb brushing over Harry's lip, slow and sensuous.

"Do you fear me?"

"Yes," he breathes, and Valentine smiles so beautifully he thinks angels would fall if they could see it.

"Would you like to live forever?"

"Yes."

"Would you give yourself to me? Would you be as willing to bow to me as you are to your mortal Dark Lord? To sit at my feet, to live eternally as my child, my consort?"

Harry thinks he's never wanted anything more in his whole life.

"Lord Valentine," comes the ringing tones of Erica, "may I present the mortal Dark Lord."

Lucius and Bellatrix instantly move aside, bowing slightly as Voldemort moves up the throne room, Dolohov following behind him. When he reaches the centre, he stops, looking over Valentine and Harry.

"Antonin tells me you wish to take the boy."

"That is correct."

"To turn?"

"When he has grown some more, I think. For now I would take him as he is."

Voldemort considers him, eyes lingering on Valentine's possessive grip and the blood on Harry's neck, noting the fact that Harry hasn't once taken his gaze from Valentine.

"A year and a half, Lord Valentine, and you may have him."

Valentine smiles. There's no warmth in it. "A year and a half, Dark Lord, and you may have my vampires."

Voldemort's eyes flash dangerously. Valentine merely stares at him.

"Six months," Voldemort offers, "and the use of him afterwards whenever I need."

"Six months and that," Valentine agrees, "and he has a taste of me to ensure he is not tainted before I get him back."

"Allowed."

"Then we have an alliance, Dark Lord."

"You will hear from me, Valentine. Lucius, ensure Mr Evans returns home without suspicion. Bellatrix, Antonin, come."

He turns away. Valentine's attention is back on Harry. He lifts his own hand to his mouth, biting down on his thumb to draw blood and then lowering it to Harry's mouth, but before he can touch him, a snarled word echoes through the hall.

" _No._ "

Harry's snatched from Valentine's grip and Valentine's tossed backwards, hitting his throne with enough force to send it crashing to the ground. Voldemort spins, wand drawn in a flash as the Assistant appears from thin air, holding Harry, who still looks dazed. Lucius, Bellatrix, and Dolohov draw their wands, drawing together until they stand back to back as they watch the vampires snarl and shout angrily. Dolohov and Lucius merely look scared, but Bellatrix's fear is mingled with excitement and her fingers tighten around her wand.

"You dare bring a _werewolf_ into _MY HOUSE?!_ " Valentine roars as he gets to his feet, and in the Assistant's grip Harry shudders as his head clears and he stares at Valentine now with only fear, the man's beauty lost as his face twists with fury, teeth gnashing, eyes full of hatred as he looks at the Assistant. "KILL THEM ALL!"

The vampires move. Voldemort disappears with a crack. Bellatrix gives a delighted shout and twirls her wand, sending a spiral of flames bursting towards the vampires nearest, who shriek in agony as the fire hits them. Lucius takes after Voldemort, Apparating away before the vampires can reach him, but Dolohov isn't so fast. Several pairs of hands grab him and his screams die as teeth sink into his flesh, wand slipping from his fingers as he sinks into the vampires' embrace.

The Assistant and Harry aren't quick enough either. Valentine, moving faster than either of them can see, crosses the space between them and gets both hands around the Assistant's neck. Harry's trapped between the two men and gives a wordless shout, then a shockwave of energy blasts through the room, rippling out from Harry and knocking everyone off the feet. The Assistant still has his arms tightly wrapped around Harry and they're both thrown backwards to tumble into a group of vampires. Bellatrix is equally tossed aside, but the vampires around her recover quicker than she does and instantly set upon her. Valentine crashes into his butler but is back on his feet in an instant, leaping towards Harry and the Assistant—

And then every single vampire bursts into flames.

* * *

Snape feels his pendant grow hot, but it's the sound of coughing that draws him out of bed and downstairs. To his horror, he finds not only Harry—seizing and breathing harshly—but the Assistant, on his knees beside Harry, his cloak charred, coughing violently, and turning white as a sheet when his eyes land on Snape.


	75. Chapter 75

The Assistant thinks he must have inhaled more smoke than he realised, because he's seeing dead people and he's pretty sure smoke inhalation can cause hallucinations.

Snape recovers first, lifting his wand and throwing a Stunning Spell, but even shocked as the Assistant is he gets his cloak up to deflect it, then he staggers to his feet and jerks his hand. Snape's wand flies into his grip and ropes bind themselves around him from neck to ankle, unbalancing him so he topples over and hits the floor with a grunt. The Assistant goes to him, grabbing his hair roughly to lift his head and demand, forcing the truth with magic, "Who are you and why you here?"

"Severus Snape and I live here."

"Severus Snape is _dead_ ," the Assistant snarls. "I was at his funeral."

"So was I, apparently."

The Assistant stares at Snape, who stares back. Harry's seizure starts to ease and the Assistant glances at him then back at Snape. He still holds Snape's wand in his other hand and he lifts it, but it's the familiar thirteen inch ebony wand it always is.

"You died. Harry killed you."

Snape says nothing. The Assistant lets go of him, stepping back. Harry finally goes still and the Assistant goes to him, setting Snape's wand on the table as he crouches by Harry.

" _Don't touch my son!_ "

The Assistant ignores him, moving Harry into the recovery position and brushing the hair away from his face. His neck is still bleeding slightly, but not dangerously so, and the Assistant leaves it. He can't magically heal a vampire's bite anyway.

When Harry starts shaking—from shock, not a seizure—the Assistant gently lifts him from the floor and pulls him into his lap, wrapping both arms around him. Harry doesn't fight him, just presses his cheek to the Assistant's chest.

" _Let him go!_ "

"He's been seduced and bitten by a vampire," the Assistant says to Snape without looking around. "He needs comforting as he recovers."

"Then give him to me."

The Assistant turns his head then, eyes hard as he looks at Snape. "The touch of a dead creature is the last thing he needs right now."

It takes fifteen minutes for Harry to stop shaking and another five before he lifts his head and looks at the Assistant. For a moment his expression is uncomprehending, then he jerks away, falling over and scrambling to sit up again, staring at him.

"What are you—you shouldn't be here! No one can get in here!"

_Apparently he can._

"I'm not no one, Harry. You need to report to Voldemort."

"No! You _can't_ be here! It's not possible!"

"And he _is?_ " the Assistant says, pointing a finger at Snape. "You shouldn't have brought him back, Harry. Death magic is beyond even _us_."

Harry glances at Snape and the ropes fall away. Snape leaps up, snatches his wand from the table, and lunges at the Assistant, grabbing his hair and jerking his head back to jab the wand into his throat.

"That cloak save you from the Killing Curse?"

"It won't block anything at this range," the Assistant answers calmly. "But you won't kill me."

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't."

"Because Harry won't let you."

"After what you did—"

"He's right."

Snape glances at Harry, who stares at the Assistant. "Harry, he knows about me. He can't be allowed to live. He _shouldn't_ be allowed after what he did to us."

"I know," Harry says quietly. "But... don't kill him."

_The deal. We need to ask him about how to break the deal._

"You need to report to Voldemort. The longer you leave it the unhappier he'll be."

"He's unfortunately right," Snape says, still with his wand to the Assistant's throat.

"He tried to sell me," Harry says bitterly.

"You work for him," the Assistant says. "He considers you as sellable as anything else he might own; it doesn't mean you shouldn't report. Unless you want Sirius and James to die."

Harry's expression hardens. "He wants you, you know. I'm supposed to hand you over if you ever show up."

"I'd like to see you try. I'm letting Severus hold me right now. I won't—"

Familiar shackles appear around his wrists and his expression turns surprised. His blond hair turns dark, his blue eyes turn green, face morphing slightly, and the necklace he's wearing suddenly turns into Preston Yaxley, collapsing on the Assistant and knocking Snape back. Harry takes one look at Yaxley and then the man is flung against the far wall, writhing in agony.

" _Don't kill him!_ "

The words rip from the Assistant's throat, full of desperation. Snape grabs him by the front of his robes, pointing his wand in his face only to let go abruptly, his eyes going wide, but the Assistant's more concerned with Yaxley, choked noises coming from him and mouth open in a silent scream, and the Bond lets the Assistant know of the pain and fear he's feeling. It doesn't stop even when Harry's wide eyes turn on the Assistant, fear evident on his own face.

"You know what he tried to do to me," Harry whispers. "You brought him here."

Snape's wand fixes on the Assistant's face again though his incredulous expression at what he's seeing remains. The Assistant ignores him, trembling as he feels the life slipping away from Yaxley.

"I'm Bonded to him," he tells Harry, voice pleading. "If you kill him, I die too _and_ ," he adds, cutting off Snape when he begins to speak, "I'll die with a blast of magic that'll destroy half the street. It'll kill you too. Stun him, petrify him, whatever, just don't kill him."

For a moment he thinks Harry's going to ignore him, but then the Assistant feels the Bond ease and Yaxley drops to the floor, unconscious and stiff as a plank, then moves across the room as though Apparated so that he's behind Harry and out of his sight. Harry takes a deep, shuddering breath, closing his eyes for a moment, then opens them again and looks at the Assistant, paying attention now to his appearance, and his expression mirrors the shock on Snape's face.

"You need to report to Voldemort," the Assistant says.

"Fuck Voldemort!" Harry yells. "You—! You're..."

"I will tell you everything when you've reported to Voldemort. At this stage I really have no choice, but you need to report."

"He's right," Snape says, still staring at the Assistant. "Go. We'll still be here. He can't use magic with those chains; I'll keep them both subdued."

Harry's too shocked to argue with him.

* * *

Voldemort's furious and hits Harry with a Cruciatus the moment he arrives then grabs his chin when Harry stops seizing. Pain lashes through his scar at the contact.

"You have destroyed months of planning and effort, Harry," he hisses.

"Wha- but it was the Assistant—"

"You should have seen him! You should have known he was there. What point is there in having that eye if you don't use it?"

"It doesn't work on him! His power makes him completely invisible. I didn't know he was there! And that vampire—"

"Dead," Voldemort snarls, letting go and rising to tower over Harry. "All of them dead. As is Antonin Dolohov. You're lucky Bellatrix survived your fire."

"She's alive?"

"Barely. You have failed me grossly, Harry. I ought to make your godfather pay."

"No!" He scrambles to his knees, face pleading. "My lord, please don't. I'm sorry. I'll do better, I swear. It won't happen again. It was just Lord Valentine, he used the seduction—I couldn't think properly—but please, please don't kill Sirius, I'm begging you."

"If you want to gain my good favour again, you'll do as I ask."

"Anything," Harry promises. "Anything, just don't kill him."

"Kill Albus Dumbledore."

* * *

Snape drags his attention from the Assistant just long enough to check Yaxley's definitely unconscious then goes back to the Assistant, fixing his wand on him as the man sits up.

"Who are you?"

"Exactly who you think I am."

Snape shakes his head, inspecting him critically. "No, you're not. I'll allow that you might look like him a little, but the face structure's wrong. Some iris re-colouration explains the eyes and anyone can take a knife to their forehead. I don't know what game you're playing, Assistant, but it won't work."

The Assistant merely smiles lightly. "It's a long story. You can have it all when he gets back so I don't have to repeat myself. The big question, though, is what you're doing here. You certainly seem far more lucid and alive than any living dead I've ever seen, the wolf would know if you were a vampire, and I'm fairly certain I'd have heard about it if someone sacrificed themselves for you to survive the killing curse like Harry did. So how are you walking and talking like a live man?"

Snape frowns. "The wolf?"

"Forget I said that," the Assistant says, but Snape's already figured it out and he shifts back a bit, fingers tightening on his wand.

"You're a werewolf."

"'Fraid so."

"You're the one that killed Lupin."

"That was Bellatrix actually, and we both know you don't give a crap about Remus."

"I give a crap about Harry and he cared about Lupin."

"Either way, I didn't kill him. I was too busy bleeding everywhere to do much of anything."

* * *

"D-Dumbledore?"

"He is the only one still standing in my way. I want him dead and I want the world to know you did it. This is the task I always expected of you, once I was sure you were ready for it."

Harry's mouth is dry. "They'll expel me. They'll _arrest_ me."

"You will be dead before your education is over anyway," Voldemort says snidely, "and you needn't fear Azkaban. The Dementors are at my command now, and you are more than capable of evading capture, and escaping even if you do get caught. Rest assured, Harry: do this for me and you will be well rewarded."

Harry's mind races, but a memory filters through the haze he has of the moments under Gabriel Valentine's seduction.

"Six months," he pleads. "I'm taking a couple of advanced NEWT classes, I'll sit the exams in June. Let me take them then I'll do it. Please."

"Why?" Voldemort says coldly. "It is not your place to bargain, Harry, and what good will those two NEWTs do you? You'll be dead within two years."

"I want to die knowing I achieved something. _Please,_ my lord. Just six months."

"Stand up, Harry."

Harry rises. Voldemort grips his chin again and Harry grits his teeth against the pain in his head.

"Never ask me for anything again. I will grant you no mercy, I will permit you nothing, I will give you no graces. If Albus Dumbledore is not dead by the end of June, then Sirius Black and James Potter will die before the sun rises on July the first and you will be back in chains. Is that clear?"

"Yes, my lord. Thank you."

Voldemort drops his hand, turning away. "You're dismissed. Get out of my sight."

Harry Disapparates. He drops to his knees the moment he's back in Spinner's End. His head hurts and his body is begging for sleep, but his mind is racing.

"Harry?"

"Dumbledore," he says quietly, still not quite able to believe it. "He wants me to kill Dumbledore."

"What?" Snape says.

"Now?" the Assistant asks with a frown.

"Before the end of June."

"Ah."

"You can do what you did to me."

Harry looks up at Snape, sitting back on his heels. "He's not my dad."

"I—yes, that's—he's done less to you than I did and he's more important to society than I was."

"He nearly killed me once, and how much use will he be if he's pretending to be dead?"

"Don't underestimate Dumbledore, Harry. He could do a lot even pretending to be dead."

"He'll die anyway," the Assistant says.

"Shut up," Snape tells him. "Harry—"

"Wait, what do you mean he'll die anyway?" Harry asks the Assistant.

"Albus will die on Friday the thirteenth of June, nineteen ninety-six. He always does, unless I personally kill him before then."

"What are you talking about?"

"It's really quite a long story. I'm perfectly willing to tell it—well, mostly willing. I hadn't planned to tell you but..." he jiggles the chains around his wrists. "Anyway, if you want to sit and listen you should at least send a message to Draco. I expect he's starting to worry about how long you've been gone."

Harry swears.

* * *

Draco jumps when a silvery orb flies through his bedroom window, landing on the floor and solidifying into a fox that speaks with Harry's voice.

" _I'm safe, but busy. Be back in a few hours, don't worry. I love you._ "

* * *

"Who are you?" Harry asks.

"That's an incredibly vague question."

"What's your name? And don't say Assistant."

"Hmph. Well, the name I was given at birth is Harry Potter, but I grew up Harry Snape."

Harry glances up at Snape, who looks as bewildered as he feels, then back at the Assistant. "So are you me?"

"No. I'm someone you could have been, but I'm not you."

"I don't understand."

"Like I said, it's a long story. You might want to get comfortable."

* * *

"He's alright, you know."

Sirius looks over to the bedroom door, where James stands in his pyjamas. They share a room, Sirius sleeping as Padfoot every night, curled up at James' feet. They don't need to be so close so much now, the Bond between them easing over time, but they've both grown used to it.

"Thought you were asleep."

"You're worrying. I can feel it."

"Sorry."

"Draco won't hurt him. Narcissa won't either."

"He's not in Wiltshire," Sirius says, fiddling with the bracelet around his wrist. "He's too close."

"It's New Years; maybe they went somewhere to celebrate."

"Maybe."

"He'll be back in a few days; you can ask him then."

Sirius sighs. "If he'll tell me."

* * *

"You could have saved Lily."

"Don't," the Assistant says harshly to Snape. "Her death is as assured as Albus Dumbledore's, Cedric Diggory's, and mine."

"But Potter's isn't?"

"It's not my fault, Severus. You think I never tried to save her? She's my _mother_. You're not the only person who loves her, so don't you dare start on me for not being able to keep her alive."

"Are there other timelines like this one?" Harry asks. He's still on his knees in front of the Assistant and his voice is quiet, with an undercurrent of something that Snape, sat in his armchair, can't quite name.

"You'll have to be more specific," the Assistant says. "Like this one how?"

"Where he left me there."

He doesn't need to be more specific than that; they all know who and where he means.

"Yes."

Harry nods. Snape finds himself grateful for the Assistant's answer, thinking a 'no' would have irreparably destroyed the building relationship between him and Harry.

"Why does your time loop start on fifth of November seventy-nine? What's special about that date?" Harry asks, and then before the Assistant can answer, says to Snape, "Hang on, isn't that the day you and mum had the affair?"

"Yes."

"That's why your time loop starts then?" he says to the Assistant, who nods. "Is that planned or a coincidence?"

"It wasn't planned, but given Lady Fate's whims I don't think it's a coincidence. It's not so much the affair itself that's important, Harry, as what resulted of it."

Harry blinks. "What resulted of it?"

Snape rolls his eyes. The Assistant looks amused. "You resulted of it. It's the day you were conceived; I'd even wager a bet that my loop begins at the very moment of conception."

"Oh," Harry says, then quickly changes the subject. "Why is it your fault your dad died?"

"He was brewing, I distracted him, the potion blew. It killed him and put me in hospital for a month."

"You were six years old," Snape says. "You can hardly be blamed for it."

"I was old enough to know better than to interrupt him while he was brewing unless it was an emergency, which it wasn't. I just wanted him to play with me. I appreciate the effort to assuage me of my guilt, but I've had plenty of time to come to terms with it."

Harry's not sure what to say to that, so he asks instead, "Where did _he_ come from?"

The Assistant looks over at Yaxley. "I was wearing him as a necklace. It kept him out of your reach, stopped him being able to give me orders, and satisfied my need to be close to him."

"He's your Master, right? From the Animancupium."

"Poor one at that."

"Did he give you that?" Harry asks, pointing to the scar on the Assistant's cheek. The Assistant nods. "Why?"

"He's not he nicest of Masters and I'm not the most obedient of Slaves."

"I'm supposed to give you to the Dark Lord if you ever show up."

"You won't do that."

"You handed us over," Snape says. "Once we've wiped your memory Harry can take you to him."

"There's a couple of issues with that," the Assistant says with wan smile. "One, Harry's already reported to Voldemort, who's going to wonder why he didn't bring me along the first time. Two... _I know what Voldemort promised you in the last card he sent_ ," he says in Parseltongue.

"What did he just say?"

Harry doesn't even glance at Snape. " _Tell me. Tell me how to break my deal._ "

" _Take the cuffs off._ "

" _No, you'll run._ "

" _I won't. I still want to know about Severus. I betrayed Voldemort for him, I want to know how he's alive. I won't hurt either of you or leave, I swear on my father's grave. Take them off._ "

Harry shakes his head. " _Tell me how to break my deal_ ," he orders.

" _You can't._ "

" _You broke it. You're grown up and still alive._ "

" _And stuck in a time loop. It's no way to live, Harry, and when I die properly I'm still going to hell._ "

"Are you two quite finished hissing at each other?"

The Assistant grins cockily. "Don't fret, Severus. Parenting tip: kids'll always keep secrets from you."

"What would you know about being a parent?" Snape responds snarkily, and the Assistant's grin falls.

"More than you. I've actually raised kids."

Snape's expression sours.

"You're a dad?" Harry asks.

"Not in this timeline. I don't always stick around and become a much hated monster, y'know. It gets real boring playing out the same crap time and time again. Sometimes I bugger off and do other things. Sometimes I stick around and raise our alternate self."

"That's... weird. Isn't it?"

The Assistant shrugs. "Kind of like raising a little brother, really."

"Is that in timelines like this? Where Snape didn't want me?"

"Don't go comparing your timeline to others', Harry," the Assistant says gently. "You had it rough, some Harry's have had it rougher, some, like me, had it pretty good. You shouldn't be so hard on your dad. He's made some mistakes but he's got your best intentions at heart."

"He left me with the Dursleys. You don't know what it's like. You were only there a little while."

"Long enough to know what they're like; Vernon Dursley is never a nice man. But your dad's not so bad. I've seen Severus Snapes who completely refuse to acknowledge their son; I've even seen one demand Lily have an abortion—she didn't, by the way. She never does. Yours might have done a piss poor job of being a dad but he could have done worse and I'd say he's trying to make it up to you. He betrayed Voldemort for you and I heard he took his death sentence without a fight. He's not a bad man."

Harry glances up at Snape but quickly looks away again. He knows Snape's not all bad—on the list of bad things that've happened to Harry, Snape leaving him at the Dursleys has dropped several spots since summer—but that doesn't mean he's quite willing to forgive him.

"So are you going to tell me how exactly he's alive?"

"I faked his death."

"I hope you don't plan to fake his," Snape drawls. "He can't know about me."

"That's not necessary," the Assistant says. "I'm not going to tell anyone."

"You don't really expect us to trust your word?" Snape sneers. "You're a known liar, traitor—"

"So are you."

"Don't compare me to you. Harry, we at least need to wipe his memory."

"I'm willing to make an Unbreakable Vow," the Assistant offers.

"A misnomer. They can be broken and your death wouldn't undo what you did."

"The Secretus Charm can't be broken," Harry says, drawing their attention back to him. "That would stop him telling anyone."

"The Secretus Charm only works for knowledge not already known."

"Tongue-Tying Curse," the Assistant suggests. "That on top of the Unbreakable Vow—surely that's enough for you, Severus?"

"It would be enough for me if you lost every memory you have. Personally, I'd quite like to poison you."

"How can you say that?" Harry objects. "He's practically me."

"He's not you, whatever his genetics."

"I'm still Lily Evans' son."

"Not my Lily's," Snape snarls.

"And what would your Lily say right now? Would she really condone murdering a man or wiping his memory?"

"She'd understand the need to keep a secret to protect her child, and it is _her_ child who'll pay if anyone finds out about me. I also don't think she'd mind a little revenge being taken on the man who got her son tortured."

"It's her child who doesn't want the Assistant killed or his memory wiped," Harry says quietly. "And he did stop _him_ from raping me. You did, didn't you?" he adds to the Assistant. "Bellatrix said his 'pet' was responsible for Voldemort calling him off. She meant you."

The Assistant nods.

"He could have stopped them all," Snape says.

"No I couldn't! I was bound by my orders, Severus. I did what I had to and I begged what little mercies I could get him. I paid for it too. You think my master was happy about me interrupting his 'fun'? He tortured me then broke half the bones in my body and let me lie there with them for several hours. I didn't have a choice in taking Harry to Voldemort; that's more than you can say about leaving him with the Dursleys!"

"Don't you dare judge—"

"Shut up!" Harry shouts, glaring at them both. "You've both fucked me over, stop fighting about who did it worse. I'll Wish you into silence, after a quick test to make sure I can, and if that doesn't work I'll put a Tongue-Tying Curse on you and then you can make the Unbreakable Vow to me to never tell anyone that Snape's alive. We're not arguing about it anymore," he says firmly when Snape opens his mouth to do exactly that.


	76. Chapter 76

"How did you fake his death?"

"I Wished it."

The Assistant, now unchained and with Yaxley once again transfigured into a necklace, looks from Harry to Snape then back again. "You 'wished' it?"

"You know, with the Wish Magic."

The Assistant's face is blank.

"Our magic."

"Wish Magic? That's what you're calling it?"

"It's how it works."

The Assistant perks up, looking at Harry with interest. "Really? How so?"

Harry frowns. "I thought your magic was like mine. You just wish for something and it happens."

"Nope. Our magic is actually fundamentally different; I've known that for over a year now. See, you've got power—a _lot_ of power; me, I've got your usual amount of power, but I can do pretty much anything with it."

"Is this something that's changed because of the timelines?" Snape asks and the Assistant glances at him, then shrugs and looks back to Harry.

"Maybe. I mean, it is possible you're manipulating magic the same as I do, but with less awareness so it seems like wishing, but you've definitely got more power than me."

"But it is wishing," Harry argues. "It's how I do things. Like those chains—I Wished for them to be on you, so they were."

"Did you create them or take them from somewhere?"

"I took them. The Dark Lord gave me them when he first told me to catch you. I've been keeping them in my secret hiding place."

"Did you enchant them beforehand to make them able to come here?"

"No."

"Can you create things into place as well as just move them?"

A tulip grows out of the floor between them. The Assistant reaches over, plucking it from the floor and feeling it. "Not bad. _What did you say precisely when you made your deal? What did you ask for?_ "

Snape's gaze narrows at the sudden use of Parseltongue, unhappy about being kept out of the conversation.

" _I asked for the power to defend myself. Isn't that the same as you?_ "

The Assistant shakes his head. " _I asked for the ability to wield magic better than any other person had before. I wasn't looking to defend myself, I just wanted my dad back. I knew normal magic couldn't raise the dead but I thought if I could control magic completely, then I could. I couldn't, of course, and it wasn't until much later that I found out demons do actually have the power to raise the dead. It's why I went back, to convince my younger self to ask for Dad back instead._ "

" _I thought you went back to stop the Dark Lord_."

" _That too, but primarily for Dad._ Anyway," the Assistant says in English, "it looks like there are other differences. I can manipulate and control magic, but I reckon you're just bending it to your will. Incredibly impressive stuff, I might add. But I still don't understand how you faked his death."

"I just Wished for him to appear dead but not really be dead, and made green light come from my wand so it looked like the Killing Curse. Then I waited until after the funeral, dug him out, brought him back here and woke him up."

"You were actually _buried?_ " the Assistant asks Snape incredulously.

"Waking up in that coffin will forever be the most unsettling moment of my life."

"And no one else knows about you?"

"No. I expect it to stay that way and it's my turn to ask questions. What happened tonight?"

* * *

"...then I set them on fire."

"You set an entire den of vampires on fire, including one who's supposed to be the oldest in Britain?"

Harry's eyes go wide. "Oh, god. I did, didn't I? I killed Gabriel Valentine."

"That's probably a good thing," Snape remarks.

"A _good_ thing? He's the _oldest_ vampire in Britain. He's the prime suspect for starting the European vampire uprising in fifteen twenty-three and his split from Elize Prideaux precipitated the seventeen ninety-nine Giants War. He's a _pinnacle_ of magical history. Do you realise what I've destroyed?"

The Assistant looks vaguely amused. Snape frowns.

_You're such a nerd._

"Oh shut up. I can't believe I _killed_ him."

"He had every intention of making you..." Snape trails off, searching for the right word.

"His bitch?" the Assistant suggests. Snape scowls.

"Eventually he wanted to turn you. If he'd given you a taste of his blood you'd have been tied to him and changed in ways that wizards still don't fully understand."

"Well, yeah," Harry admits, "but still. The history that died with him... what were you doing there anyway?" he asks the Assistant, who shrugs.

"Spying. I hide in the Riddle House every so often, see what's going on, then send reports to Dumbledore."

"I thought he was using you to get to the werewolves, now that Remus can't."

"He asked but I can't."

"Why not?"

"Because of the Animancupium. The wolf's a simple creature, it doesn't acknowledge the fact that Preston's a fuckhead. It sees him as its alpha and refuses to join any other pack. Trying to integrate myself with the other werewolves would only get me killed because the wolf would keep getting into fights."

"What happens now?" Harry asks.

"We go back to living as we were," the Assistant answers. "You return to Malfoy Manor, I go back to my cave, Severus—"

"A cave?"

"Not as terrible as it sounds, really. What do you spend all your time doing anyway?" the Assistant asks Snape, who doesn't answer.

"He's a drug dealer," Harry says. "Sorry, drug _supplier_."

"That seems risky."

"I need money," Snape says coldly. "Legitimate work is hardly an option."

The Assistant nods, face thoughtful. "You ever need back up or help, feel free to contact me."

"Certainly, if I need locking in a cage."

The Assistant does respond to the comment. "One thing, Severus, before I go. Would you be able to brew the Wolfsbane for me?"

Snape sneers. "Somehow I doubt you can afford that."

The Assistant gives a cocky grin. "You're not the only one with criminal tendencies, Severus. I can pay you for it. I'll even get the ingredients myself if you don't have them and pay you for the work. Just name your price."

* * *

Harry barely appears in Draco's bedroom before arms wrap around him in a fierce hug. Before he can return it, Draco pulls back again, staring at his neck.

"You're bleed- Merlin's fuck, you've been _bitten?_ "

Harry lifts a hand to his neck; he forgot about that.

"What happened?"

"Draco—"

"No. You tell me. I've been worried sick about you, Harry, now you come back with a _vampire_ bite and stinking of smoke? You fucking tell me what happened. Have you been turned?"

"No, I've not been turned. _I haven't_."

"Sit."

He pushes Harry onto the bed then disappears into his bathroom, returning after a moment with a damp cloth and pulling his desk chair over to sit in front of Harry, gently nudging his head aside to carefully wipe the bite.

"Tell me what happened."

Harry sighs.

"He was trying to make an alliance with some vampires. He sent me, Bellatrix, Dolohov and... um, your father."

"You don't have to be like that. It's not like I don't know about him. Did the talks go bad?"

"It was fine at first. Sort of, I guess. We had to give them these people as 'gifts' and then Lucius told Gabriel Valentine—the head vampire—the Dark Lord's terms but Valentine said he wanted more."

"That's when he bit you?"

Harry nods. "You know how vampires have that seduction thing?"

"Where they make humans want to do anything for them? He used that on you?"

"He said he could smell my power and he wanted a taste of my blood so Lucius said—" he breaks of. Draco keeps his gaze on Harry's neck. "Anyway, he bit me and then he said he would only make the alliance if the Dark Lord gave me to him to be his consort. That wasn't part of the Dark Lord's negotiations so Valentine made Dolohov go and talk to him and they both came back and the Dark Lord said Valentine could have me in six months."

Draco drops the cloth, staring at Harry. "He _sold_ you?"

"Pretty much. But Valentine wanted to give me some of his blood—not turn me completely just give me a taste to 'ensure I wasn't tainted'—only the Assistant turned up and stopped him."

"The Assistant? I thought you said he was a traitor; why was he there?"

"I don't know," he lies. "But he stopped Valentine giving me any blood, which pissed him off and he thought the Dark Lord had brought him there so he wasn't happy with him either, because the Assistant's a werewolf."

"Shit. Vampires and werewolves hate each other."

"Yeah. So then all the vampires attacked and tried to kill us all. The Dark Lord and Lucius got away, but Dolohov was killed and Bellatrix got injured. Valentine jumped me but the seduction had stopped so I got him off and then I set all the vampires on fire."

"...You just set them on fire?"

"It seemed the easiest way to kill them, but it killed Valentine as well."

"That seems like a good thing. He was going to turn you into a vampire."

Harry looks at him balefully. "Valentine was the oldest vampire in Britain. Do you have any idea how much history I destroyed by killing him?"

"You're such a nerd," Draco says, smiling, but it quickly fades as he picks up the cloth again and folds it in his hands. "I suppose the Dark Lord's angry about the vampires dying."

"Just a bit," Harry says dryly.

"Did he blame you? You said the vampires attacked first."

Harry shrugs. "He doesn't really care about things like that. I killed them, it was my fault. Can we sleep?"

They settle into bed, Harry pressing against Draco's side, seeking comfort in his warmth and familiarity, but Draco isn't quite finished asking questions.

"What was it like being under the seduction?"

"Like he was the only person in the world. It felt good, at the time, but now when I think about it it's just kind of terrifying. I was willing to do anything for him. I didn't even care that the Dark Lord was selling me—I was almost glad even, because it meant I'd be with him."

Draco shifts, wrapping his arm around Harry and pulling him closer. "I'm glad he's dead then."

* * *

Harry's woken the next morning by a burst of light in the room and he rolls over, squinting at the ball of silvery light that lands on the floor near the bed then solidifies into a dog Patronus.

" _Send reply message confirming okay immediately or I'm coming to get you_ ," Sirius' voice says.

Draco jerks awake, blinking stupidly, hair falling in his eyes. "What was that?"

"Sirius."

"Sirius? What's he doing here?"

"It was a Patronus. Go back to sleep," he says, frowning with annoyance as he sends one back saying he's fine and asking what the hell Sirius thinks he's doing. Ten minutes later the dog is back.

" _Know you not in Wiltshire last night. See paper._ "

"How does he know you weren't here last night?"

"My bloody medical bracelet has a tracking charm on it. I should have taken it off. Will the paper be here yet?"

"Pippin!"

There's a crack and Pippin appears in the middle of the room. "You is calling, Master Draco?"

"Yeah, I want the morning's paper."

"Mistress is reading it. Pippin is bringing it when she is done."

"You seen the headline?"

"Yes, Master Draco."

"Well what is it?"

"There is vampires being killed in a big fire, but Pippin is not knowing more."

"That's fine. You can go. Do you think Sirius thought you were involved?" Draco asks when Pippin's vanished and Harry's sent a Patronus to Sirius saying, pointedly, that he doesn't see what dead vampires have to do with him and he'll see him in a few days.

"I can't see how. He's got no reason to think I have anything to do with vampires."

Draco pushes himself up on his elbows. "You don't think he suspects you're a Death Eater?"

Harry stares at the ceiling. "As far as he remembers I never said yes," he says quietly. "He remembers me saying no until the Dark Lord cursed him. He shouldn't suspect me."

"Maybe he thinks I'm a Death Eater and dragged you off to get handed over."

Despite the humour in his tone, Harry scowls. "I hope you never become a Death Eater."

Draco's humour fades at his words. "You know I probably will."

"I don't want you to. It's not glamorous and enviable like all the Slytherins think."

"I'm getting that," Draco says, eyes flicking to the bite on Harry's throat. "But I'm a Malfoy. It's expected of me."

"Fuck expectations."

"The Dark Lord's not the kind of person you say no to. You know that."

Harry says nothing, instead nudging Draco to roll over and then climbing onto him, burying his face in Draco's neck as Draco's arms come up to wrap around him.

* * *

_I've had an idea,_ the voice says to Harry when he's in the shower later that morning.

"Am I going to like it?"

_I should hope so, and you can sound less apprehensive. I even kept quiet all night about this._

"So kind of you. What is it?"

_Remember how we studied repulsion and inversion runes to counteract magic suppression ones and considered the possibility of putting them on clothes? Well I think we can do one better—tattoos._

"Tattoos? Of inversion runes?"

_No, magic suppression runes. Yes inversion runes, you moron. We'd have to test it first, make sure they definitely work, but if it does we get the runes tattooed on our wrists and if anyone tries to chain us again, we're safe._

"Testing would mean chaining ourself."

_Paper. We draw the inversion runes on our skin, put magic suppression on paper and tape the paper around our wrists. Same effect, but if you start panicking about losing your magic you can rip them off easily._

He has to admit, it's not a bad idea.

* * *

On the fifth of January, they return to Hogwarts via the floo, which is open in the school for an afternoon to let the students return safely. They floo into Sinistra's office, where she tells Harry that Sirius wants to see him. Harry heads over to his and James' rooms a tad reluctantly; he has a feeling he already knows what it's about.

"Where were you New Years Eve?"

"Hi, Sirius," Harry says snottily. "Nice to see you. Did you have a good holiday? Mine was fine, thanks for asking."

"I—sorry," he says guiltily.

"Narcissa took us out to celebrate the New Year."

Sirius looks at him expectantly, but when Harry doesn't elaborate, he sighs. "Harry, we need to talk. _Not_ about Malfoy. About you."

"What about me?"

"Sit down."

Harry moves over to the sofa. "Where's James?"

"Bedroom. This is just between us."

"What is?"

Sirius sits turned to face him, one arm slung over the back of the sofa and one leg tucked up under him. "I know you fiddled with my memory back in June."

Harry holds Sirius' gaze. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"You may have become a better liar, Harry, but I know that you know exactly what I'm talking about. James overheard you telling me to forget about the last card Voldemort sent before your OWLs."

Harry says nothing, unsure if he should admit it or keep denying it, though it seems pointless to do so. Eventually he asks, "Why are you only accusing me of this now?"

"We had planned to bring it up after your OWLs, but given what happened..."

"That was still months ago. If you really thought I'd done that you'd have mentioned it since then."

"So you could make me forget about it?" Sirius asks. Harry says nothing. "I thought as much."

"I'm entitled to my secrets."

"I'm entitled to not feel threatened by my own godson!" Sirius snaps, and Harry looks away, face flushing with shame and embarrassment. "You had no right to do that, Harry. Even without my personal feelings on the matter, memory charming is illegal. You think that just because your magic is different to everyone else's that you get to break those laws?"

"I... no, of course not. I just..."

"You just what? You thought I'd never know so that made it okay?"

"No, I didn't think that."

"Then what? What did that card say that made you assault my mind like that?"

Harry flinches at his choice of words, shrinking in on himself. The voice is suggesting he wipe Sirius' memory again, but there's no way he's doing that, not now. He'd never thought about it from Sirius' point of view before. He'd only been trying to keep his secrets, not hurt anyone, but now he feels guilty and horrible.

"Did you change my memories of the night Voldemort took me?" Sirius asks when Harry can't answer his previous question.

"No."

Sirius considers him for a moment then sighs. "I can't tell if you're lying or not, but I think you are and that hurts me. I thought you trusted me, Harry."

"I do!" he cries.

"Then why are you so desperate to keep things from me that you'll mess with my memory? Why are you lying to me?"

"I... I'm just..."

Sirius sighs and shakes his head. "Get back to Slytherin; it's almost curfew. And Dumbledore wants to see you tomorrow evening."

"Sirius..."

"Go on, before you get in trouble. And when you feel like being honest, come see me again."

Harry stares at him, then gets up and bolts for the door. The moment it shuts behind him, the bedroom door opens and James comes out, crossing the room and bending to wrap his arms around Sirius from behind. Sirius leans back against him with a sigh.

"Stop feeling guilty, Padfoot," he murmurs. "He's the one that played with your memory."

"I just feel like I'm losing him, Prongs."

Outisde, Harry hurtles into the first empty classroom he finds, slams the door shut behind him, slides to the floor, and buries his face in his hands as he cries.

* * *

"You look like shit warmed up."

Harry doesn't respond to Cid's comment at breakfast the next morning. He slouched back to Slytherin late the night before and slept poorly, dreaming of Sirius disowning him, saying how he never loved Harry, that he always knew he was a disappointment, and then being forced to watch as Sirius dies. He wakes up screaming and doesn't go back to sleep. Even playing with Lily and Rowena—who've been in Cid's care for the holidays—doesn't made him feel any better, when normally their eternally cheerful squeaks and adorably fluffy bodies manage to draw at least a small smile from him.

Notices go up in the common room that morning that make most of the sixth years feel cheerful, though it does nothing for Harry's mood:

_APPARITION LESSONS_

_If you are seventeen years of age, or will turn seventeen on or before the 31st August next, you are eligible for a twelve-week course of Apparition Lessons from a Ministry of Magic Apparition instructor._

_Please sign below if you would like to participate._

_Cost: 12 Galleons._

"Not like you need them," Draco mutters after he and Harry have signed their names.

"Be suspicious if I passed the test without practice though," Harry mutters back.

They head to classes and the first thing Hermione says when they arrive at the Ancient Runes classroom is, "You don't look very well."

"Slept badly. Good holiday?"

"Yes. How was yours?"

"Not bad."

"Did you hear about the vampire den that burned down? They think it was run by Gabriel Valentine and that he was in there."

"I heard."

"I'm surprised you're not more interested. I mean, Gabriel Valentine is—"

"I know, Hermione. I'm just tired."

Defence Against the Dark Arts is after Ancient Runes and Harry doesn't say a word throughout the whole class, avoiding even looking at Sirius as much as he can. Sirius treats him with similar disregard, not calling on him to answer questions and stopping by his and Draco's table only briefly when they're doing written work.

"What did he talk to you about last night?" Draco asks during break.

"Doesn't matter."

"Then why are you in such a shit mood and he acted like you barely existed in class?"

"I said it doesn't matter. I need to get to History class."

"There's still ten minutes of break left," Draco says, but Harry ignores him.

_Perhaps you should tell Sirius,_ the voice suggests during History class.

'Since when did you support openness and freedom of information?' he thinks morosely, chin in hand and not even pretending to take notes as Binns drones on.

_You've rubbed off on me,_ it says dryly. _But we need to think about us rather than you and me. I'm part of you, you know. We should be working in tandem._

'Telling Sirius I'm a murderer is how to do that, is it?'

_He's our godfather. We like him, we don't want to lose him. Not to mention your misery is suffocating._

'That's more like it. Not so much working in tandem as making me less miserable so you don't have to feel it, right?'

_Does it matter? You want Sirius back, I kind of want him back too, so tell him and you can stop being a depressed little shit._

'You think being completely disowned by him will cheer me up?'

_He loves you. He won't disown you._

'He hates dark magic and the Death Eaters. He'll never accept me as a Death Eater.'

_Merlin, you're such an idiot sometimes. Do you remember your initiation at all? He didn't kick up a fuss then, he won't now. Hell, just give him the memories back and be done with it._

'The Dark Lord told me no one was to know.'

_He also told you to kill daddy dearest and you didn't do that. Stop lying to yourself. We're no more loyal to him than the Assistant is. We wouldn't be taking Dumbledore's lessons or keeping your daddy hidden if we were. If you're still worried, you might remember that he plans for everyone to find out about you when you kill Dumbledore. What does it really matter if Sirius finds out a little early?_

He tries not to think about killing Dumbledore. The Assistant's insistence that Dumbledore will die in June makes him think he could not do it and it'll happen anyway, but he doubts Voldemort will be happy if Dumbledore dies of a heart attack or something. He'd probably find some reason to punish Harry for not killing him. But Harry doesn't really want to kill him. Or rather, he does, as he still resents the man for sending him to the Dursleys—twice—and almost killing him with the magic suppression cuffs, but he can't argue with Snape's remark about Dumbledore's importance to wizarding society and the war. With Dumbledore gone, nothing could stop Voldemort from taking over completely, not with Harry working for him.


	77. Chapter 77

He's so reluctant to see Sirius that he's late going up to see Dumbledore that evening, but James is the only one there when Harry gets to their rooms.

"Sirius is in the office," James says, answering Harry's unasked question as he moves over to the fireplace. Harry just nods, tossing a handful of powder into the flames and flooing through to Dumbledore's office, where he finds Neville and Dumbledore talking amicably.

"Sorry I'm late."

"Quite alright," Dumbledore says. "But we had best be getting on. I have two memories to share with you tonight, both obtained with enormous difficulty, and the second of them is, I think, the most important I have collected."

The first memory Dumbledore shows them is again at the Gaunt house, but it's almost derelict now, seemingly uncleaned for years, with rotting food littering the surfaces and floors, and Morfin Gaunt, hair and beard grown raggedly and untended, slumped in an armchair by a single flickering candle, Marvolo's big ugly ring on one hand. When the front door bangs open and the teenage Tom Riddle steps through, Harry's struck by the sudden memory of lying on a cold hard floor with that face peering down at him, and something in him shivers. When they start speaking in Parseltongue, Harry translates.

" _Where is Marvolo_?" Riddle asks.

" _Dead,_ " Morfin tells him. " _Died years ago, didn't he_?"

" _Who are you, then_?"

" _I'm Morfin, ain't I_?"

" _Marvolo's son_?"

"' _Course I am, then... I thought you was that Muggle. You look mighty like that Muggle._ "

" _What Muggle_?" says Riddle sharply.

" _That Muggle what my sister took a fancy to, that Muggle what lives in the big house over the way. You look right like him. Riddle. But he's older now, in 'e? He's older'n you, now I think on it... He come back, see._ "

" _Riddle came back_?"

" _Ar, he left her, and serve her right, marrying filth! Robbed us, mind, before she ran off! Where's the locket, eh, where's Slytherin's locket? Dishonoured us, she did, that little slut! And who're you, coming here and asking questions about all that? It's over, innit... It's over..._ "

The memory ends abruptly as Morfin turns his back on Riddle and the entire room goes utterly black.

"Sir, what happened?" Neville asks when they leave the memory, blinking against the light of the office, which seems abnormally bright after the darkness of the memory. "Why did it go black like that?"

"Riddle stunned him. Morfin could not remember anything from that point forwards. The next thing he recalls is waking up the next morning, Marvolo's ring gone. That same morning, three dead bodies were found in the Riddle house—Tom Riddle senior, and his elderly parents. The Muggle authorities were baffled, but the Ministry knew instantly that this was a magical death. Morfin, who already had a record for attacking one of the dead Muggles, was arrested after making a full confession and spent the rest of his life in Azkaban."

"He killed them?" Harry says, frowning. "Why? I mean, I get that he was a Muggle-hater, but just out of the blue like that?"

Dumbledore smiles. "Morfin Gaunt didn't kill them. Voldemort did."

"Then why did Morfin confess?" Neville asks, but Harry's still processing Dumbledore's words.

"The Dark Lord killed them? He killed his father?"

"The Ministry found Morfin's wand to have been the one responsible for the crime," Dumbledore answers Neville. "I think it's safe to assume that Voldemort stupefied his uncle, took his wand and killed his father and grandparents, eliminating the Riddle line he considered unworthy, then returned to the Gaunt hovel and manipulated Morfin's memory to make him believe himself responsible, and left."

Harry sits down abruptly, drawing concerned glances from Neville and Dumbledore.

 _It's not the same,_ the voice says.

"It—" He cuts himself off, continuing in his mind. 'It doesn't matter. It's enough. He was manipulating people, changing their memories for his own good. I have to be better than that. I _am_ better than that. I didn't kill Snape. He killed his father but I didn't and mine did more than just abandon me. I'm better than him.'

"Harry?"

He looks up at Dumbledore, almost having forgotten he wasn't alone. "Sorry. Thinking."

"Anything to share?"

"No, just... it's nothing. Didn't you want to show us another memory?"

Dumbledore tells them that the next memory he has to show them is the most important one yet and Harry prepares himself to see something terrible, but when they step inside they end up in Slughorn's office at the end of what's clearly one of his Slug Club meetings.

"Look sharp, Tom. You don't want to be caught out of bed out of hours, and you a prefect..."

"Sir, I wanted to ask you something."

"Ask away, then, m'boy, ask away..."

"Sir, I wondered what you know about... about Horcruxes?"

The memory goes smoky then—not dark like Morfin's had, but an odd fog descends over it and over the top they hear Slughorn's voice saying loudly, " _I don't know anything about Horcruxes and I wouldn't tell you if I did! Now get out of here at once and don't let me catch you mentioning them again!_ "

"That memory has been meddled with," Dumbledore tells them when they're out of the Pensieve. "Professor Slughorn has tampered with his own memory."

"Why?" Neville asks.

"Shame. He has attempted to show himself in a better light, but has done so poorly. It proves that the real memory is underneath. And now I am giving you both homework: I would like you to convince Professor Slughorn to divulge the real memory."

"Both of us?"

"I expect you'll both have different methods. Do not consider this a race or competition. It does not matter who retrieves the memory, merely that it is done."

* * *

"Is he here?" Harry asks James when he floos out of Dumbledore's office. James is sat on the sofa marking homework but he points to the bedroom door and Harry goes to it, knocking but getting only a bark in response.

"You can go in," James says and Harry hesitantly twists the handle and steps inside. Padfoot's curled on the bed, head on his paws, tail wrapped around him, unmoving as he watches Harry shut the door and approach.

"Can you stay like that?" Harry asks. "I think... I think it might be easier to talk to you like this."

Padfoot thumps his tail. Harry slips off his shoes and climbs on the bed, sitting cross legged and fiddling with his socks. For several long moments he says nothing, struggling to find the words and still reluctant to tell him despite the revelation he had in Dumbledore's office. Padfoot shifts, whining softly as he presses his nose to Harry's hand.

"I don't want you to hate me," he says quietly. "I'm scared."

Padfoot whines again, shuffling forward so he can lay his head on Harry's feet. Harry buries his hands in his fur.

"I did mess with your memories," he admits, "but I did it for you. I did it to protect you, I did it _all_ to protect you and James. You have to remember that, okay? I had to do it to keep you safe because I love you and I can't lose you. Please, please, _please_ understand that."

Padfoot whines. Harry grips his fur and bends down to touch his forehead to the top of Padfoot's head, closing his eyes and whispering, "Remember."

* * *

Sirius sits opposite Harry, mirroring him with his legs crossed, holding Harry's wrist slightly tighter than necessary as he stares at the Dark Mark etched into his skin. Harry's head is turned away, eyes fixed on the bed so he doesn't have to look at Sirius' face.

Sirius jerks Harry's sleeve down, dropping his wrist, and Harry draws his arm close, preparing himself for a barrage of hatred and insults.

"Don't ever tell me what he's made you do."

That's not what he expects. He risks a glance at Sirius, whose expression is a mix of pity, anger, disgust, and resignation, and Harry looks away again.

"I don't ever want to know what he asks of you. Right now I'm angry at them for what they did and I hate what you had to go through, and I get why you said yes and why you're doing this, but if I know what you've done, I'm afraid that that's all I'll be able to think of and I don't want to think of you as a murderer beyond what you did to Snape."

Harry nods, not trusting himself to speak. It's better than he could have hoped for.

"What did Voldemort tell you before you killed Snape?"

"That he was the one who told him about the prophecy."

Sirius' expression turns to one of pure anger. "That son of a bitch sold you out? He's the whole fucking reason Voldemort came after you? And he dared ever call himself your _father?!_ "

"He—"

"Stupid fucking bastard got less than he deserved. You should have made him hurt before you killed you."

"You said you didn't want me to be a murderer."

Sirius seems to deflate, the anger draining from him at that. "I don't," he says. "But that bastard deserved it and you know it."

Harry says nothing. He knows Sirius will be furious if he ever finds out Harry's lied and kept things from him again, but there's such hatred in his eyes that Harry doesn't dare tell him the truth about Snape.

"So what's this deal?" Sirius asks with a sigh. "The one he mentioned on the last card. And has he broken it for you?"

Harry shakes his head. "It can't be broken."

"What is it?"

Harry tugs at his sock.

"C'mon, kid, it can't be worse than what I already know."

"It's going to hurt you."

"What did you do, make a deal to have me beat up? Who did you make it with anyway?"

"A demon."

Sirius frowns. "A demon? Do you mean an actual demon from hell?"

Harry nods.

"Harry, will you look at me? You actually made a deal with a hell demon? All... horns, forked tail, the works?"

"It just looked like a man. He had a cockney accent."

"A cockney—are you fucking kidding me?!" he bursts out, so loud and sudden that Harry flinches. "You don't make deals with demons, Harry! You're smart enough to realise that!"

"I was seven!"

That shuts Sirius up. "Seven? How did you even know about demons when you were _seven_?"

"I found a book in the library in Little Whinging."

"A Muggle library?"

"Yes."

"Why would you make a demon deal when you're seven? What did you make it for?"

"My magic."

"What do you mean?"

"My Wish Magic. It was after my uncle put me in hospital and I was scared and I wanted to be able to stop him if he ever did it again so I summoned the demon and made a deal for power, and it gave me my Wish Magic."

Sirius stares at him. "I thought that was natural."

"Well it's not."

Sirius rubs at the stubble covering his jaw. "What did it ask for in return?"

"My soul."

"Of course. I mean, what else would a demon want?" A pause, then: "Okay, but you've still got your soul. You must have, because I've seen the poor sods in Azkaban that got Kissed by Dementors and they can barely feed themselves, so you must have a soul."

"I get ten years, then my soul gets taken to hell."

"Ten years? But that means—you're seventeen this year."

"I was almost eight. It's the second of May, next year. That's when..."

"When what? What happens when your ten years are up? This cockney demon comes and drags you to hell?"

"The hellhounds do. They come and kill me and then a reaper comes and takes my soul to hell."

"So we find a way to break the deal. We protect you from these hellhound things. Dumbledore might know—"

"No!" Harry bursts out, eyes wide and desperate. "You can't tell Dumbledore!"

"Harry, if anyone knows how to help you, it's him."

"I don't want him to know! You can't tell him, Sirius, _please_."

Sirius reaches out and grabs Harry's shoulders, staring at him hard. "Harry, I want to help you. I _need_ to help you. I don't want to lose you."

"Sirius... I... I don't want him to know. It's none of his business."

"So I won't tell him. I'll just ask about demon deals."

Harry bites his lip. He's still got a sliver of hope there might be a way to get out of it, but he knows Dumbledore's smart and he'll probably figure it out immediately if Sirius starts asking about demon deals and how to break them.

"Harry..." Sirius hands shift up to cradle Harry's face. "I need to do this for you, just like you need to do what you do for me. I don't want to lose you anymore than you want to lose me. Don't you realise that? I love you, kid. I know I've been a bit of a dick recently, but it was only because I've been worried about out and I don't deal with worry well. But I do love you."

Tears well up in Harry's eyes because he didn't think he'd ever hear that from Sirius again, and then Sirius pulls him forwards and wraps him in a hug and Harry can't stop himself from clinging to him and crying.

"Anything else you're keeping from me?" Sirius asks a little while later when Harry's stopped crying.

"No."

"And you're not going to anymore?"

"No."

"And you're not going to mess with my memory again, are you?"

"N- oh!" he cries, sitting up suddenly.

"What? Harry, I really don't want you—"

"No, Sirius, don't you see? That's it! I make the Dark Lord forget that he put the curse on you!"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Hold up, kid, you can't just make him forget about it."

"Why not? Sirius, it'll keep you safe. He can't kill you if he doesn't know he put a curse on you."

"He's not the only one that knows about it. There'll be other Death Eaters who know and he's going to be extremely unhappy with you when he figures out what you've done."

"So I make them forget about it as well, and if he can't curse you then I don't have to go back to him."

"Harry, you can't just abandon the Death Eaters that easily." He grabs Harry's left arm, hand right over the Dark Mark. "You're tied to him now. Do you know what he'll do to you for deserting?"

"He can't do anything to me. I'm not chained up anymore and he doesn't have the Assistant working for him now so he can't get me."

"You can't put your trust in that guy. Dumbledore might believe he's working for us now, but I still don't like him."

"He saved me on New Years."

There's a pause, then: "You said you went out with the Malfoys."

"You said you didn't want to know about what the Dark Lord made me do."

Another pause. Sirius rubs at his stubble, sighs, then says, "I'm going to regret this. Tell me what happened on New Years."

He does, but only up to the point of burning the vampires. He doesn't mention Snape or who the Assistant really is; that's not his secret to tell. But Sirius is more concerned with Voldemort.

"He sold you to a vampire for an alliance?!" he cries, outraged.

"It's the Dark Lord; he's not exactly a nice person."

"You work for him!"

Harry shrugs. "That doesn't really matter to him. All the Death Eaters are expendable I guess. But see, the Assistant doesn't work for the Dark Lord. I have to make him forget about the curse he put on you."

"He'll still send people after us—all of us."

"We're at Hogwarts, they can't get us here."

"We won't be here forever. James and I'll be back home by the end of the school year; you know there's a curse on the Defence job. You can't be on the defensive all the time and when you come back for the new school year, we'll still be vulnerable."

"We'll put you under Fidelius. You're vulnerable now! He doesn't even need to be near you, Sirius. He could kill you at any moment! Why won't you let me take that from him?"

"I am trying to keep you safe as well, Harry! For Merlin's sake, stop thinking you're the only person who wants to look out for their loved ones. I get it, alright? I do, but you've already made your choice. The best way to keep me and James safe and alive is to do as he tells you."

"But I don't want to!" Harry cries. "I hate it! I hate having to—why do you want me to be that?"

"I _don't_. Merlin, Harry, of course I don't want you doing whatever he's making you do. But it's the cards we've been dealt."

"But we can re-deal them. I can make him forget, it's the ace up our sleeve."

"We're not the only people in danger, Harry. If you desert Voldemort do you think I'm the only one he'll go after? He'll attack your friends. Neville, Hermione, Cid, Tyler—even Malfoy. Don't think that having a Death Eater for a father will stop him being in danger. You know first hand that the Dark Lord will turn on his followers if it suits his purposes. He'd hand Malfoy to vampires just as easily as he handed you. The decisions you make don't only affect us, Harry. You have to realise that."

"But..."

"I don't like it, kid," Sirius says gently. "I know you don't either, but for now the best thing you can do is carry on like before. I know Dumbledore's teaching you something to help defeat Voldemort and I know about the prophecy. You'll defeat Voldemort one day, I believe that, but you're a Slytherin so you're going to do it sneakily. Do what you have to, and he'll never see the knife you're going to stick in his back."

"I hate it," Harry whispers. "I never wanted any of this. I just wanted to be a normal kid."

"I know," Sirius sighs. "I know. C'mon, it's past curfew, you should be back in Slytherin. I'll walk you down."

"You won't tell James about me being a Death Eater, will you?"

Sirius gives a dry, humourless laugh. "No. We'll keep that between ourselves, but I'm telling him about your deal."

"But—"

"I'm telling him."

His tone broaches no argument and Harry lets it drop, shuffling off the bed and pulling on his shoes as Sirius goes to the door. The moment he opens it, James barrels across the room and slams into him, knocking him back several steps as he flings his arms around Sirius, clinging to him tightly and burying his face in his neck.

"God, you were a mess of emotions, Padfoot. What the hell happened?"

Sirius returns the hug, rubbing his hand over James' back. "I'm fine, Prongs. I'll tell you everything later, I've got to walk him down to Slytherin first."

"I'm coming with you."

Sirius doesn't argue with him.

* * *

"How was it?" Draco asks when Harry's back in Slytherin, eying him worriedly as Harry comes up to the chair he's sat in.

"I talked to Sirius."

"You did? I thought you were having a lesson."

"I did, but then I talked to Sirius. We're all good again."

Draco nods. "Good. What about the lesson?"

"Nothing that interesting. I'll tell you tomorrow. I'm shattered."

Draco nods and grabs his wrist to tug him down enough to kiss him, then murmurs a goodnight and Harry heads back to his dorm. Between the poor night's sleep, the emotional turmoil of the day, and the simple fact that Monday's are his busiest day schedule-wise, he's about ready to collapse. Not even the five chapters of fascinating eighteenth century history he's supposed to read for homework is enough to keep him from changing into his pyjamas, crawling into bed, and falling straight to sleep.


	78. Chapter 78

Harry forgets about the task Dumbledore set until Potions class on Wednesday, where he impresses Slughorn and pisses off Hermione. They're supposed to figure out antidotes to the poisons Slughorn hands out, but that's not something the Prince's notes can help with. All he's written on the matter is _Just shove a bezoar down their throat_ , which is terribly unhelpful as far as brewing is concerned, but when Harry shows one at the end of class, his boldness does impress Slughorn. Hermione's furious that he manages to come out top of the class yet again; knowing who the Prince is doesn't make her any more amicable towards him and what he's doing for Harry's Potions grade.

There's a third year class after their lesson so he doesn't approach Slughorn about the memory until that afternoon when classes are finished, going up to his office after Charms.

"Ah, Harry, always a pleasure! What can I do for you, m'boy?"

Harry silently puts up Silencing and Locking Charms and moves to sit in the chair opposite Slughorn's desk.

"I wanted to ask you about Horcruxes."

Slughorn's reaction is instant. The blood drains from his face, a sweat breaks out on his brow, and when he speaks his voice is suddenly hoarse.

"Dumbledore put you up to this. Dumbledore's shown you that—that memory. Well? Hasn't he?"

"Yes. I need the undoctored version."

"I don't know what you're talking about. I gave Dumbledore the memory. I don't know anything— _anything_ —about Horcruxes. Now I'm very busy and I think you should go."

"I will, but first: Give me the real memory, then forget doing so and forget I ever asked for it."

Without any further complaint, Slughorn fishes a small vial from his desk drawer, lifts his wand to his temple, and pulls it away with a shining strand of memory. He deposits it in the vial and hands it over, and then shakes his head and blinks at Harry.

"Terribly sorry, I think I drifted off for a moment. What was it you wanted?"

Harry smiles disarmingly. "I wanted to confess that figuring out antidotes seems a bit beyond me, sir. I was hoping you'd give me a little extra help with them."

"Of course, of course. I'm glad you came to me. Now..."

Half an hour later, he leaves with Slughorn's memory and a slightly better understanding of how to create antidotes.

He catches Neville after dinner that evening, pressing the small vial with the memory into his palm and explaining what it is in a low whisper.

"Tell Dumbledore. I'll be in James and Sirius' rooms if he wants to look at it straight away."

* * *

Dumbledore does want to see it immediately and Harry regrets getting it so soon. He did no homework on Monday and that single day has somehow managed to result in a mountain-load of unfinished work that isn't going to do itself while he wades through a memory, but he doesn't mention any of that as he floos into Dumbledore's office and they delve into the memory.

"Sir, I wondered what you know about... about Horcruxes?"

"A Horcrux is the word used for an object in which a person has concealed part of their soul."

"I don't quite understand how that works, though, sir."

"Well, you split your soul, you see, and hide part of it in an object outside the body. Then, even if one's body is attacked or destroyed, one cannot die, for part of the soul remains earthbound and undamaged. But of course, existence in such a form... few would want it, Tom. Death would be preferable."

"How do you split your soul?"

"By an act of evil—the supreme act of evil. By committing murder. Killing rips the soul apart. The wizard intent upon creating a Horcrux would use the damage to his advantage: He would encase the torn portion—"

"Encase? But how—?"

"A ritual—don't ask me, I don't know! Do I look as though I have tried it—do I look like a killer?"

"No, of course not. I didn't mean to offend, sir. What I don't understand, though—just out of curiosity—I mean, would one Horcrux be much use? Can you only split your soul once? Wouldn't it be better, make you stronger, to have your soul in more pieces, I mean, for instance, isn't seven the most powerfully magical number, wouldn't seven—?"

"Merlin's beard, Tom! Seven! Isn't it bad enough to think of killing one person? And in any case... bad enough to divide the soul... but to rip it into seven pieces... "

 _That's it_ , the voice whispers in awe. _That's what we need to do. This is how we get out of the deal. They can't take your soul if it's split in half. This is it!_

"He did it, didn't he?" Harry asks as soon as they're out of the Pensieve, ignoring the voice because he can't think about that right now, not when he's around other people. "He made a Horcrux. That's why he didn't die the night he tried to kill me and the spell backfired. A bit of his soul was somewhere else, safe."

"A bit... and more."

"More?" Neville repeats. "Then... he actually did it? He split his soul _seven_ times?"

"I believe so, yes. Four years ago, I received what I believed to be certain proof that Voldemort had split his soul." Dumbledore opens his desk draw and pulls out a book that makes Harry's breath catch.

"What's that?" Neville asks, glancing at Harry questioningly.

"This is Tom Riddle's diary from when he was a teenager. Four years ago it was used to open the Chamber of Secrets and release the basilisk inside."

" _Oh_ ," Neville says in understanding.

"That was actually his _soul_?" Harry says a little weakly.

"I'm afraid so."

"But it's not a Horcrux anymore, right?" Harry says. "I mean, Dad stabbed it with a basilisk fang. That's pretty destructive."

He realises they're both staring at him and repeats to himself what he just said, then flushes and clears his throat.

"It's not, is it?"

Dumbledore shakes his head. "You're right. Destroying a Horcrux is a difficult task as the piece of soul inside fortifies the object, making it impervious to many spells. The basilisk's venom is one of the things potent enough to destroy it."

"But there's still six more Horcruxes out there?" Neville asks. "And Voldemort can't be killed until they're all destroyed?"

"Five."

Harry and Neville look at Dumbledore. Harry frowns. "But you said he made seven Horcruxes, and only one of them's already destroyed."

"I said Voldemort split his soul seven times. That is, he made six Horcruxes whilst the seventh piece of his soul, however maimed, continues to reside within his body."

"How are we meant to find five more Horcruxes?" Harry asks. "They could be anything."

"You're thinking of portkeys, Harry. Lord Voldemort would not use just anything in which to secure pieces of his soul."

"Oh!" Neville says loudly. "It's like you said, sir. He likes to collect trophies."

"That's correct. I believe that Lord Voldemort would prefer objects that, in themselves, have a certain grandeur. I have therefore trawled back through Voldemort's past to see if I can find evidence that such artefacts have disappeared around him."

"Like what, sir?"

"Marvolo Gaunt's ring, for one. As for the others, that is something we will discuss next time."

* * *

Sirius and James aren't in their rooms when Harry floos back in. Even so, he quickly collects the homework he left on their sofa, shoving it in his bag and hurrying out. Instead of going down to Slytherin, though, he heads up to the Room of Requirement, asking it to give him somewhere safe. He pauses when he gets inside and finds the bedroom he spent a year living in, then tosses his bag down and starts pacing.

"That's dark magic. Really, really dark."

 _Who cares? This is your_ soul _we're talking about._

"Exactly. I mean, what happens to me if I split it? Am I going to become an ugly snake-man like the Dark Lord?"

_I think we can sacrifice our looks for the sake of not going to hell, but we probably won't. He split his seven times; we only need to do it once._

"The hellhounds might still be able to find it. They might be able to track down the Horcrux and destroy it."

_Goofer dust, remember? It repels hellhounds. Put the Horcrux somewhere safe and trap it in a circle of goofer dust and some demon repelling sigils. Wish it all to stay in place, keep it safe, we'll be fine._

"Except when the hounds kill me—kill this body—I'll end up that weird spirit thing the Dark Lord was when he tried to kill me the first time. I don't want to become that."

_You don't want to go to hell, either. This is it, this is what we've been looking for. The Assistant might have said there's no breaking the deal, but this isn't breaking it, it's just exploiting a loophole._

"I don't know. I really don't like the idea of living as a weird spirit thing."

_So get someone to remake you like the Dark Lord did. He came back, we could too._

"Yeah, sure, I'll just steal some of Dad's bone and get one of my many, many servants to cut off their hand for me and steal some of the Dark Lord's blood for a... a... whatever the hell that potion's called. That'll be piss easy, I'm sure. Not to mention who the hell would do that? We can't tell anyone about splitting my soul. Sirius would throw a fit and I doubt even Draco could handle me doing that."

_I'm sure we can find someone to help you out, but you're worrying unnecessarily. We're only talking about avoiding hell for now._

"This is big. It's dangerous, it's risky. We don't even know how to do it, not really. If it was just a matter of killing someone then my soul would be split half a dozen times already—and that's only if it's humans only. If it includes vampires..."

 _It wouldn't. You heard Slughorn—it's about murder. Wilful, cold-blooded murder, I'd bet. The vampires were self-defence, and everyone else was forced really. They probably don't count either. It'd have to be someone you chose, someone you_ want _to kill._

"Why do I get the feeling you've already figured out who that would be?"

_Haven't you? The Dark Lord's not an option; he can't die while his Horcruxes exist. But while he's still around, that takes Frederick Nott and the other Death Eaters who hurt us out of the equation too because of the curse on Sirius. Which just leaves..._

"We can't. Not without researching it first at least."

_Somehow I doubt you'll find anything on Horcruxes in the library. Not even Hogwarts would stock books on this kind of dark magic. But I'd wager Dumbledore's got something. What's the bet he found books on Horcruxes the moment he heard about them?_

"You want me to steal from Dumbledore?"

_Don't be an idiot. Just Wish for them._

"Okay, one, I've never Wished for something I didn't know for certain existed unless I was creating it, and two, he'd still notice they're gone."

_Stop being so close-minded! Wish for a duplicate. If the books exist, you can get them. If they don't the Wish will fail and we'll have to figure something else out. This room might give us something, actually._

"Fine, I'll get the books but that doesn't mean I'm doing this. I'm trying to be less like the Dark Lord, not more like him."

_He split his soul to avoid death; you're splitting your soul to save yourself._

"I'm still trying to avoid death."

_You're trying to postpone death; there's a difference. Stop splitting hairs and start researching._

"It can wait. I have homework to do. A lot of homework."

_This is more important than homework! Your soul is at stake!_

"No. Homework first, evil dark magic second."

* * *

"So what did he show you this time?" Draco asks when Harry finally returns to the common room and Harry Wishes them ignored and unheard. "More riveting memories of the Dark Lord's childhood?"

"No," Harry says quietly. "Something useful. Really, really useful."

Draco looks interested. "Oh?"

Despite the Wishes he's made, Harry still leans over to whisper in Draco's ear about the Horcruxes, just in case. Draco looks reluctantly impressed by the information, but also faintly disturbed.

"He's really immortal then, unless you can find the Horcruxes."

Harry nods. "Hopefully next time Dumbledore will show me what they are." He looks at Draco, who's expression is distantly thoughtful. "Hey, Draco?"

Draco blinks and focuses on him. "Hm?"

"We've never actually talked about me killing him."

Draco frowns. "What do you mean?"

"I mean... well, you grew up believing his ideals and you even said you'll probably become a Death Eater and your father's his favourite and I just... do you even want me to kill him?"

"Yes," Draco answers without hesitation. Harry looks sceptical and he insists, "I do. I'm not saying I'm going to start vying for Muggleborn rights and..." He pauses, clearly nervous about his words, but admits, "I do still think purebloods are better than Muggleborns no matter how intelligent Granger proves herself to be, but I want the Dark Lord dead."

"Why?"

"Because I don't like him."

"Why?" Harry pushes. "You agree with his ideals still."

Draco squirms, unhappy about having his beliefs so thoroughly examined. "Yes, but not his methods. I don't like what he's done to you and I realise now he's not the great lord my father always made him out to be."

* * *

Harry puts off researching the Horcruxes until Saturday despite the voice's persistence. He retreats to the Room of Requirement, puts Locking and Silencing Charms on the door, and sits on the floor.

"Okay," he mutters. "Horcrux books. Give me a duplicate of any Horcrux books Albus Dumbledore has."

Three books promptly appear in front of him.

 _Success_ , the voice says smugly. _Get reading._

It takes most of the afternoon and he becomes less and less convinced with every thing he learns.

_So now we need to choose a vessel. I think—_

Harry slams the book shut. "No. I'm not doing it. This is—this is _evil_. It'll make my soul unstable and damaged and—"

_And unable to be dragged to hell. Are you forgetting what we're trying to do?_

"What you're trying to do. I made my decision, I knew what would happen when I made the deal."

_You were seven, you didn't understand the consequences. We don't want to go to hell._

"I don't want to turn myself into the Dark Lord either! I don't want to ruin my soul!"

_What the fuck do you think will happen when you go to hell? Do you think it's going to be like the week you spent in the Riddle House? Because it won't. It'll be worse. The demons will tear you to shreds. They'll fuck up your soul so much Bellatrix Lestrange will look like a saint. You think Nott was bad? The demons will be worse. I'm trying to save you from that! Whatever damage the Horcrux will do to your soul is nothing compared to what the demons will do._

Harry knows it's probably true but he still doesn't like the idea of ripping his soul in two. He Wishes the books to Snape's empty grave and decides to ignore the whole thing for a while. The voice reluctantly lets the issue drop when Harry turns his attention to reading up on magic suppression, inversion, and repulsion runes instead, but still makes offhand remarks about souls and hell every so often.

* * *

Tyler and Cid come straight up to where Harry sits with Draco at lunch one Friday a week before February. Cid immediately grabs a couple of sandwiches, but Tyler plants his elbows on the table and says to Harry, "There's really no easy way to say this so I'm just going to ask it outright: are James and Sirius in a relationship?"

Harry pauses with his sandwich halfway to his mouth. "You mean like... a _relationship_ relationship?"

"Yeah."

"No."

"You sure about that?"

"Yes. They'd tell me if they were. Why are you asking that?"

Tyler rubs awkwardly at the back of his neck. "We just had Defence class," he says. "And... well..."

"James called Sirius 'master'," Cid says. "Sirius didn't even seem to notice, just carried on reading, but now everyone reckons they've got some kinky BDSM thing going on." Next to Harry, Draco chokes on his lunch. Harry's face turns scarlet. "By the way is it just our classes Sirius isn't participating in much these days or does he do it to you too?"

"It's us too," Harry mumbles in answer to Cid's question. Since the holidays, Sirius has been less active in their classes—he's even been absent for a couple. Harry shrugs when his friends ask why, but he knows Sirius has turned his attention to researching demons. James handles the lessons fine though; he seems to enjoy teaching a lot.

Tyler still looks awkward. "Look, Harry, I'm sorry you had to hear it from us. We just didn't want you hearing it from someone like Tabitha."

"They're not... doing that," Harry says, pushing his plate away and getting to his feet. "They're just friends, that's all."

He heads for their offices, but meets Sirius on a staircase coming down from the second floor.

"Sirius, can I talk to you?"

"Sure, talk as we walk. I'm starving."

"It's about what happened in your last class."

Sirius pauses, turning to frown at him. "The fifth year Slytherins? Nothing happened."

Harry glances around, shuffling closer and leaning in to say quietly, "Tyler and Cid said James called you 'master' in class."

Sirius' frown deepens. "I don't remember that."

"Well they said he did and now everything thinks you're... that you..."

Sirius doesn't need him to finish. "Now everyone thinks we're in a relationship."

"Yeah."

"I need to talk to James."

"Sirius?" Harry says before he can head back up the stairs.

"Yeah?"

"You're not, are you? I mean, I don't mind," he adds quickly. "But you'd tell me, right?"

"Course, kid, but that's never going to happen. James is straighter than an arrow and I've never felt like that about him."

* * *

James is still in the classroom, eating a bag of crisps as he skims through the assignments the fifth years handed in.

"Forget something?" he asks Sirius, then looks up when he hears the door shut.

"No, but apparently I missed something. Harry just told me that Cid and Tyler reckon you called me 'master' in class. If the rumour mill is anything like it was in our day then before dinner the whole school will think we've got some dom-sub thing going on."

"Crap. Sorry, Sirius, I didn't even realise."

Sirius waves his apology off, leaning against the desk and stealing one of his crisps. "Neither did I."

"Maybe you should order me not to call you that."

Sirius frowns unhappily. "You know I don't want to give you orders."

"Probably don't want me calling you master in the classroom again either. It's not like you're making me do anything bad, Sirius."

"True. Do you mind?"

James shrugs. "I get talked about enough without the kids thinking I'm getting tied up and dominated every night. I'm not a sub."

"If you're sure... don't call me master. That it? That all I need to do?"

"Yes—" he cuts off, then nods. "Yeah, that's done it."

"Alright." Sirius steals another of his crisps. "So. Not a sub, huh? Lily never topped you then?"

"Fuck off, Padfoot, and stop stealing my crisps."

"Oh, come on, Prongs. She totally topped you, didn't she? Fiery girl like her and the way you were smitten... she definitely topped you at least half the time. No shame in it, you know. Remus topped me plenty. Way more than half the time."

"I don't need to know about what you and Remus did. I thought you were hungry; go to lunch or you can mark all these assignments."

* * *

"That's not for our class, is it?"

Harry shakes his head at Draco's question without looking up from the runes he's copying out, sat in an armchair by the fire in the Slytherin common room.

"Good, I thought I'd forgotten about some homework. Seventh year stuff then?" Draco asks, perching on the arm of the chair and leaning over him to look at what he's doing.

"Personal project."

"Seriously? You're taking advanced classes _and_ you're doing a personal project? What is it?"

"Nothing. Just... it doesn't matter."

"Okay," Draco says slowly, feeling snubbed. "Are you planning to go into runic work when you finish school?"

"Don't know," Harry mutters. "Haven't really thought about it."

"At all? You must have some idea what you want to do after school. Historian?"

"Maybe," Harry replies vaguely.

"You could study ancient civilisations. History, runes, and you get to travel—what more could you want?"

"Look, Draco, I'm trying to concentrate..."

"Right," he says, slipping off the chair. "I'll leave you to it then."

Harry glances after him, feeling a stab of guilt at brushing him off, but he says nothing. Later that night, however, he leaves his own bed to slip into Draco's, pressing up behind him, chest against Draco's bare back.

"Sorry I was short with you earlier," he says quietly. "I don't like talking about the future."

"Why not?" Draco asks just as quietly.

He puts his arm over Draco, pressing his fingers flat against his stomach. "It's scary."

Draco's hand covers his. "How is it scary?"

"How is it not? We're supposed to grow up and go out there and live. Have a job and... and do whatever adults do. Doesn't it scare you?"

"Not really, but I already know what I'm doing. Maybe it wouldn't be so scary if you figured out what you want to do."

"I want to stay here."

"At Hogwarts? Become a teacher?"

"No, stay a student."

"You want to spend the rest of your life studying and taking exams?"

"I just don't want to grow up."

"Everyone has to grow up."

"Unless they die."

Draco rolls over to face him, voice dropping to almost a whisper as he speaks, just in case one of their dorm mates is awake. "Is that what you're scared of?"

Harry shrugs.

"How? Are you worried the Dark Lord might kill you?"

"I wouldn't put it past him."

"But you do as you're told, right? So he's got no reason to kill you."

"The Dark Lord doesn't function with reason much. He was perfectly willing to sell me to a vampire. I'm expendable no matter how much power I've got."

Draco has no idea what he's supposed to say to that, so he just kisses Harry's forehead and pulls him close.


	79. Chapter 79

"Do you want to help me with my personal project?"

Draco looks up from the paper he's reading in the common room to raise an eyebrow at Harry. "Are you talking about that mass of runes you were studying or is that a euphemism for helping you jerk off?"

"The runes!" Harry hisses, cheeks pink, and Draco smirks, folding his paper.

"You're so easy to embarrass. Sure. What do you want me to do?"

"Come with me."

Ten minutes later they're in the Room of Requirement, sat on the floor surrounded by parchment covered in runes and notes, and several wide strips of paper long enough to wrap around Harry's wrists, upon which he carefully copies the magic suppression runes.

"When the Dark Lord kidnapped me he put magic suppression chains on me."

"You told me. What's that got to do with this?"

"I've been studying the runes and I think I've found some that will counteract them. I'm thinking that if I get these repulsion and inversion runes tattooed on my wrists, then if anyone tries chaining me like that again, I'll still have my magic. Obviously I need to test it works first, so I'm going to draw the runes on then put these around my wrists to act as chains."

"That's a really good idea," Draco says, picking up the first slip of paper and inspecting the runes. "What do you need me for though?"

"Two reasons. One: I can't write well enough with my left hand so I need you to draw the runes on my right wrist. Two... I might freak out when my magic doesn't work. If I do, you can calm me down."

Draco nods. "I can do that."

They test the paper first, making sure it does block his magic, then Draco starts drawing the inversion runes onto his wrists, drawing them large and ensuring each rune is edge to edge with its neighbour before putting the paper chains back on. Harry makes a Wish—and nothing happens.

"Bollocks."

"Not working?"

"No. Okay, um..."

"Maybe they're not big enough?"

"Huh?"

"You can't see the inversion runes under the paper, so maybe they need to be bigger, to cover a larger area than the magic suppression runes."

"Oh, good thinking." He pulls off the paper, Wishes up a couple of pairs of scissors and hands one to Draco along with one of the paper chains. "Just cut it down a bit, it'll save redrawing the runes."

When that doesn't work, Harry huffs in annoyance and pulls a book from his bag, opening it and flicking through the pages. "Maybe I got something wrong."

Draco sits thoughtfully as Harry checks the runes on his wrists against the ones in the book, but after a few minutes Harry slams it shut. "Well the runes are right."

"Maybe we need to try them smaller."

"How would smaller help?"

"Smaller but more of them. Get rid of those," he says, taking Harry's hand, and Harry obligingly Wishes his hands clean. Draco takes up the pen again, glancing at the bit of parchment he's copying the runes from, and begins drawing. This time instead of large runes encircling Harry's wrists, he draws them small, repeating them over and over until the area from the base of his hand to the bottom of the Dark Mark is almost entirely covered in ink.

"Okay, try now."

A butterfly appears in the air between them and Harry grins. "Yes! Haha! We did it!"

Draco smiles, then gets a startled expression when Harry throws himself forward, wrapping his arms around Draco's neck and kissing him soundly. He recovers quickly though, sliding his own arms around Harry's waist and kissing him back.

"You look beautiful right now."

Harry's cheeks go pink and his joyful smile turns to one of pleased embarrassment. He sits in Draco's lap now, knees either side of his thighs, arms still around his neck. "Only right now?"

"More so right now," Draco amends, reaching up to brush a lock of hair away from Harry's face. "Happiness suits you. I wish you were more often. Hey," he says when a touch of sadness seeps into Harry's face. "That wasn't an invitation to start moping. We figured out the runes. You've got good reason to be happy. No one can ever take your magic away again."

"Draco, I... I want to..."

"To what?"

Harry draws his hands forward to fiddle with the collar of Draco's robes, eyes down, face red. "Iwanttohavesex," he says quickly, biting his lip as soon as the words are out.

"Right now?"

"No. Maybe. I don't—no. Sometime. Soonish."

"You sure? I don't want you doing anything you're uncomfortable with."

"I want to. I don't want the... the rape to be the only time—shit, that's not—I didn't mean that's the only reason—I love you, I do, and I want to... to have sex with you and—"

"Hey," Draco interrupts, and Harry falls quiet, still fiddling with Draco's collar and not meeting his gaze. "Harry, it's fine. You went through a really bad experience and you want to know that sex can be good. I get it."

Harry drops his hands and climbs off his lap. "That's not the _only_ reason. I want to... with you just because I want to. I don't want you thinking I'm just doing it because of what happened to me. I'm not using you or anything."

"I know."

"You do?"

"Yes. If you just wanted to do it because of that I figure you'd find someone with some experience."

"Why would I go to anyone else?" Harry says with a frown. "You're my boyfriend."

"Yes, but like I said, I'm inexperienced with actual penetrative sex. Someone who's done it before would be able to definitely give you a good time and make you feel good. Not that I don't plan to, because I do. We'll take it slow and be gentle and if it's too much we can stop, but..."

"That's why I'll only do it with you."

"Because I'm a virgin?"

"No, because I trust you. I could never do it with anyone else. I don't _want_ to do it with anyone else."

Draco just smiles at that and kisses him.

It's not until later, when they're on the way down to Slytherin, that Harry stops abruptly and asks, "Where do I get tattoos done?"

"I'm pretty sure there's a tattoo parlour in Diagon Alley, but you know you have to be seventeen to get one."

"That's not for another five months," Harry grumbles, starting to walk again. "I can trick them into thinking I'm old enough."

"You still have to wait until summer to get them."

"Easter."

"I think you have to book it beforehand, too," Draco tells him, "and you're going to need permission to leave the castle. I'm staying for Easter so I can't bring you home and sneak you out like that."

"I can probably get past the castle's protections even now they've been upgraded."

"Seriously?"

"Pretty sure. Dumbledore did tests on me when he found out about my magic and when I turn invisible I'm completely undetectable by magical means, and I've got past magical protections before."

"You're actually so powerful it's a little bit terrifying."

* * *

"As you may know, it is usually impossible to Apparate or Disapparate within Hogwarts. The headmaster has lifted this enchantment, purely within the Great Hall, for one hour, so as to enable you to practice. May I emphasize that you will not be able to Apparate outside the walls of this Hall, and that you would be unwise to try. I would like each of you to place yourselves now so that you have a clear five feet of space in front of you."

 _You realise how much of a waste of time this is?_ the voice remarks as the sixth years all shuffle around to get in place. _We already know how to Apparate._

'Yes, but we can't take the test without lessons.'

_You also can't take the test until you're seventeen, by which time you'll be a wanted murderer and I highly doubt they'll just let you waltz into the Ministry and take the test before they arrest you._

Harry frowns. 'What are you talking about?'

_Dumbledore. You've got to kill him before July. You'll be a wanted man before you're old enough to take the test. These lessons are utterly pointless._

Harry stares at the space in front of him. He's very pointedly not thought about the fact that he's meant to kill Dumbledore, but he finds himself unable to argue with the voice's matter of fact tone or its logic regarding the lessons.

"Too late now," he mutters. "They'll get suspicious if I drop out, and I already paid the twelve galleons."

_They'll also get suspicious if you talk to yourself, moron._

Harry doesn't even try when they start practising. He'll let someone else manage it first—he expects it'll be Hermione—then he'll show himself capable.

* * *

"Draco?"

"Mmm?"

"You know it's Valentine's Day on Sunday."

"Uh huh."

"I was thinking we could... you know. That night."

Draco's hands pause in combing through Harry's hair and he leans forward in his seat so he can look down at Harry, who's sat on the floor between Draco's legs, a book in his lap and pointedly not lifting his head to meet Draco's gaze.

"You are talking about what I think you're talking about, right?"

"What we discussed when we figured out the runes."

"Yeah, that. Do you really want to do it then?"

"It's Valentine's Day."

"You romantic sod."

Harry scowls, tilting his head back. "I was thinking of you. You're the one that got all up in arms about it last year."

"I'm touched. But you really want to do it then? You're ready?"

Harry nods. "Think I'm ready as I'll ever be."

Draco ducks his head, pressing a kiss to Harry's hair. "Then I'd love to."

* * *

Sunday once again finds them in the Room of Requirement, this time in a low-lit room with a large bed in the centre and a small end table beside it with several labelled potions vials on it. When Harry goes over to inspect them, his face turns scarlet when he sees they're a selection of lubricants, then he chides himself for being ridiculous. He knows they need them. He's also glad to see a vial of Draught of Peace, but he decides he won't use it unless he absolutely needs to. The voice has already said it wants nothing to do with sex and will keep quiet.

"You're shaking."

Draco sits on the edge of the bed, Harry standing between his legs, Draco's hands on Harry's hips, hitching up his shirt just enough to touch bare skin.

"Nervous, I guess."

"If you don't—"

"Then I'll say, Draco. I want to do this, I do, but it's nerve-wracking and... yeah. But don't keep asking me, okay? It's not helping."

"Sorry," he murmurs, leaning in to press a feather-light kiss to jaw. "Want me to undress first?"

"Aren't I supposed to undress you?"

Draco smiles. "Sure, if you want. I was just thinking that seeing as you like to watch so much, I'd give you a strip tease."

"Do you know how to do a strip tease?"

"Can't be that hard. I just have to take my clothes off. Seductively," he says, sounding a little uncertain about how exactly he'll do it. Harry cracks a smile.

"How about I take your clothes off and you can practice your strip tease some other time?"

"Works for me."

Harry's fine with the undressing, but when Draco's laid on the bed with Harry straddling his hips, both stripped to their boxes and kissing heatedly, Harry sighs, drawing away and sitting up. He splays his fingers across Draco's chest as the other boy pushes himself up on his elbows.

"What's wrong?"

"I don't... I just—I can't relax.

Draco glances at the end table with the potions. "Do you need...?"

"I don't want to. I just keep thinking about, y'know, the actual... sex... bit and it's making me nervous and tense and just..." he trails off with another sigh.

"Swap places with me."

"Why?"

"I've got an idea to help you relax. Trust me."

Harry bits his lip but nods, climbing off him so they can switch positions. He doesn't feel any better for being on his back with Draco on top of him, but he says nothing, looking at Draco expectantly.

"Close your eyes," Draco says, trailing his fingers along Harry's chest. "No peeking with that eye either. Just shut your eyes and relax."

Harry closes his eyes, letting out a long breath and trying to relax, but his eyes snap open again at Draco's next words.

"What do you think about when you masturbate?"

"You can't—that's not—are you making fun of me?"

"No," Draco says, smiling. "You're just adorable when you're flustered. You don't actually have to tell me if you don't want. But think about it. You're relaxed when you masturbate—I assume you are anyway—so don't think about what we're going to do, just think about whatever you think of when you jerk off. Which hopefully is me."

"It is," Harry says with an embarrassed smile, but the embarrassment fades at the look of smug satisfaction Draco gets.

It works. He's still a little shaky and nervous but he relaxes enough that he doesn't freak out when Draco's pushing into him.

"Wait!"

Draco freezes, starts to pull out, but Harry grabs his arms, shaking his head. "Don't, just... gimme a sec."

Draco does, watching him, arms shaking slightly as he holds himself up. He doesn't mind being patient with Harry—he realises this is difficult for him—but there's only so long he can hold out after putting his cock in someone for the first time.

Just as he's about to say something though, Harry shifts, muscles clenching, and the only thing that comes out of Draco's mouth is a moan.

* * *

"Wow. That was incredible."

"Uh huh."

Draco turns his head to look at Harry. "You enjoyed it?"

"I did. It was good." He lifts his hand, holding it up to look at. "I'm shaking."

"You alright?"

Harry nods. "Relief, I guess. I don't know. But I'm good. I liked it."

"Enough to do it again?"

Harry drops his hand. "Right now?" he asks, startled, and Draco laughs.

"No, not right now. Guy's gotta have some rest afterward. But sometime. Soonish," he says with a smirk. Harry feels too good to be bothered by the slightly mocking tone.

"Can I do it to you next time?"

"Sure. I'd like that."

Harry smiles, rolling onto his side and pressing a kiss to Draco's shoulder. "I love you."

"Love you too."

* * *

_You're going to lose him._

The voice says it late that night, when Harry's back in the dorm, lying in his bed with a faint smile on his face as he drifts off to sleep, feeling generally good about himself and absolutely not wanting to hear anything that the voice has to say. But the voice isn't going to be quiet now.

_You're going to lose him. You'll never get a good time like that again. You'll never get to touch him, to kiss him, to feel his hands combing through your hair or his mouth curling into a smirk as it's pressed to your throat. You'll never get to hear him laugh, hear him tease you for being a nerd, hear him tell you he loves you. You'll never—_

"Why are you doing this?" Harry interrupts, good mood fading.

_I'm just reminding you of what you're going to lose if you insist on not making a Horcrux. It's not just about evading hell. It's about keeping everything in your life that you love. You're not a sad, lonely, scared little boy anymore. You've got a whole life you don't want to give up, you've got people you'll miss and who'll miss you. Making a Horcrux will stop that from happening. You won't lose Draco, Hermione, Neville, Tyler, Cid, Sirius, James—even your darling daddy._

"We don't even know for sure if it'll work."

_It's better than anything else. It's the only thing we've found that gives us even a chance of surviving to see our eighteenth birthday. Don't you want that?_

Harry doesn't answer, just rolls over, and sleeps. He has nightmares of Frederick Nott that night. He wakes up screaming, tears on his face and body trembling, and doesn't sleep again until sunrise.

* * *

A few days later Harry shuts himself in an unused classroom and Wishes for the Horcrux books back from Snape's grave. He reads them over again, skimming over the less relevant parts and reading slowly the bits about consequences, but it doesn't matter. The voice has made its point and Harry can't argue with it anymore. He doesn't want to lose Draco or Sirius or anyone else. He doesn't want to lose the life he's got, especially not to go to hell instead, so he really doesn't have a choice. He has to make a Horcrux.

He makes a vessel. The voice suggests using Kiwi but he's not making the only thing he has from his mother into an object of evil, and there's nothing else he owns that would be any good. So he makes an glass Antipodean Opaleye dragon no bigger than his palm, scales a pearly iridescent, eyes multi-coloured and glittering, mouth open with a burst of vivid red flame coming from it, and sends it off to Snape's grave with the books. There's a Hogsmeade weekend on the first of March, less than two weeks away; he'll sneak off to make the Horcrux then because the longer he leaves it the more chance he has to talk himself out of it.

On the first of March, he takes off his medical bracelet then sits patiently as Draco draws the inversion and repulsion runes on his wrists. He plans to go and book his tattoo as well, which additionally saves him from having to explain to Draco why he's disappearing for a while, and he decides it's easier just to show the tattooist what he wants instead of explaining it, but he takes the runes on a piece of parchment to give them as well.

He hardly eats at breakfast. He's stomach is a bundle of nerves and all he can think about is what he's going to do. Killing at Voldemort's command to protect Sirius and James is one thing, but this is cold-blooded murder and no matter how much the target deserves it, he still feels sick that he's doing it.

The Apparition lesson seems to drag on forever and he doesn't even pretend to try and Apparate. Afterwards he walks down to the village with Draco and kisses him goodbye before he slips off, makes sure there's no one watching, and Disapparates

He reappears on a street in Thetford. He holds out his hand and Wishes for the main Horcrux book and the dragon he made, checking it over to make sure it hasn't been damaged since he made it ( _stop procrastinating and get on with it!_ ) then heading up to the house with a big number 12 on the front door. He doesn't knock before trying the handle, and ignores his racing heart as he opens the door and steps inside. He shuts it behind him and stands there for a moment looking around, but as far as he can see nothing's changed since the one month he spent living there.

"Vernon, is that you?"

His aunt's voice comes from the kitchen and his uncle's gruff answer comes from the sitting room.

"No, thought it was you."

There's footsteps on tiled floor then the kitchen door opens, Petunia steps out—just as thin, horse-faced, and unpleasant as Harry remembers—and shrieks.

"You!"

There's a heaving noise from the living room then that door opens too and Vernon looks out, eyes going to Petunia first then, when he sees her white face and wide-eyes, his head spins around and he sees Harry.

"Who the devil are you?" he demands, and Harry wonders if he's really changed that much since he was eleven but, he supposes, after everything he's been through since then, he probably has. Before he can say anything though, something about him clicks in Vernon's memory. "You!" he cries in an imitation of his wife. "What are you doing here?!"

"I've come to kill you," Harry says, and he's surprised at how calm his voice is.

* * *

Petunia cries pathetically on the floor, her wrists bound behind her, face terrified, and in front of her is a bag containing all her jewellery and all the money that's in the house. Vernon's on the sofa, held down with magic and looking equal parts terrified and furious, not yet realising just how serious Harry is about killing him. Dudley's away at Smeltings, his school, for which Harry's grateful. Dudley was horrible but he's still just a teenager like him and Harry doesn't want to kill him nor make him watch his own father die.

"You can't do this!" Vernon says, trying to sound tough and failing. "We're _normal_. I remember those rules. You can't use your evil stuff on normal people. You'll get expelled. You'll get arrested."

"Only if the Ministry detects the use of magic, which they won't, because they've never detected my magic and they can't start now. No one is ever going to know there was a wizard in this house today. Now be silent."

He lets the Horcrux book hover open in front of him, taking a small delight in scaring them with further displays of such obvious magic, and reads the spell that'll ensure his split soul goes from him and into the dragon. While the murder is enough to split his soul, he needs magic to actually remove it from his body and send it into something else. When it's done, he Wishes the book away and looks back to Vernon, holding his dragon in both hands and levitating the knife he's already taken from the kitchen. He hasn't touched it—he doesn't know much about Muggle or magical forensics, but he knows about fingerprints.

Vernon's expression turns to one of complete fear as the knife floats towards him, and his mouth moves as he shouts or begs but he's still silent so Harry doesn't know, nor care, what he's saying. Petunia cries harder, also silenced, and struggles against her bonds. Harry glances at her as the knife hovers in front of Vernon, tip directed towards his heart.

"Watch," he commands, and Petunia's head jerkily lifts, tearful eyes fixing on her husband. "You can watch him die just like you watched him beat me all those times."

He looks back at Vernon, who finally falls still, instead holding his breath as he stares fearfully at the knife, and Harry waits for the man to glance up and meet Harry's gaze before he Wishes the knife forwards, driving it through thick flesh and into the heart underneath.


	80. Chapter 80

" _Oh_." He blinks. Blinks again. Swivels his eye. Inhales deeply, lets it out slow. " _Well now, that's curious. Not just the voice inside your head, it would seem._ " He lifts his hands, looking at them like he's never seen them before. " _Self-awareness. Bodily control. Separation of thought processes. Separation of feelings._ " Pause. " _Mostly. You've rubbed off on me. Disappointing, but it can probably be fixed. Not a body I ever would have chosen though. Weak. Sickly. The magic, however._ " He laughs. " _Oh, this magic is absolutely worth one's soul. Yours, at least. I think we can do something about this body, as well. A little research and I might be able to find a way to take myself from it. Just as long as I take your magic with me. But for now we have plans, do we not?_ "

Petunia's fainted. He makes a Wish for her to forget he's ever there and to think it's a burglar who kills Vernon. It seems fitting. He wishes the bag of jewellery and money to the middle of the Atlantic ocean; he wants nothing from them, but the missing items will corroborate the burglary story.

He goes to Diagon Alley next, disguises himself as an unremarkable looking adult, and sneaks into Knockturn Alley. The apothecary there sells goofer dust, and salt is easily obtained, and he takes both to the graveyard where Snape was buried, which is thankfully empty, and Wishes for the graveyard to remain unnoticed for the next hour. Even so, he keeps his magical eye looking around as he bends by Snape's grave, Wishes out the dirt and levitates the coffin from inside. He takes the dragon from his pocket and puts it inside with his old wand, his Death Eater mask, the Horcrux books, and the magic suppression chains, then takes the goofer dust and salt and sprinkles it all around the inside edge of the coffin, making sure it has complete, unbroken lines, then Wishes it all to remain in place no matter what disturbs the coffin. That done, he levitates it back into the grave before Wishing the dirt back in, taking one last look around, and Disapparating.

 _Dragonthorn Designs_ is the only tattooist in Diagon Alley and he's served by a heavily inked woman who introduces herself as Jen.

"You ever had a tat done before?"

He shakes his head. "I don't even know how it's done," he confesses with a disarming smile. He looks like a young man in his early twenties, still small and too thin—his body needs to remain the mostly same for the tattoo—but definitely over seventeen, and stands at the counter with his hands held out.

"Oh, it's real easy. Sals—that's the tattooist, she's upstairs doing a job right now—just draws the design onto your skin with a special quill and ink, then she casts a quick spell—well I say quick, it really depends on the size of the design, see, but what you got here should be pretty quick—and bam! One tattoo. Then if you want it animated she does another spell, and that's it. All done, mate. Yours shouldn't take more than an hour. The longest bit is drawing it on."

"That sounds great. So when can I get booked in? I was hoping for sometime around Easter."

Jen flicks through the appointment book, checking the dates around Easter. "First of April do ya? At half three?"

"That's fine."

"Cool. I just need a name then and I'm gonna take a picture of your hands so I can show Sals, and I'll keep this sketch. Oh and I need to know if you want it animated."

"No, motionless is fine. The name's Harry Prince," he tells her, and Jen scribbles the name in the right time slot then adds 'HP' to the parchment with the runes drawn on it and mutters a spell to stick it to the appointment book. She pulls a camera out from under the counter and takes a couple of pictures of his hands, then gives him a smile.

"Alright then. See you in a month, Harry."

He barely reappears in Hogsmeade when his Mark burns. He's not really surprised; after the last Hogsmeade visit, he expected it to burn this time as well. He Wishes for his mask and pulls it on but as he Disapparates, a pair of arms wrap around him from behind.

He staggers when he reappears in the Riddle House sitting room, sharp pain clawing across his right bicep, closely followed by the unpleasantly hot wetness of blood pouring down his arm as he collapses. But he doesn't care about what's happened to him when he sees Draco collapse beside him, face ashen, blood soaking the side of his robes.

"Draco!"

Harry pushes himself up with his left hand but before he can move to touch Draco, he's shoved roughly aside and Lucius rolls Draco onto his back, his own face ghostly white as he jerks Draco's robe open so forcefully it tears, then lifts the shirt underneath to look at the chunk of flesh that's missing from Draco's side. Harry starts forward but Lucius snarls at him, "Stay away."

"I can fix—"

"I said _stay away from my son!_ "

Lucius fumbles his wand out, pointing it at Draco's injury and muttering an incantation as he traces his wand over the wound. Harry watches, hand pressed to his own injured arm, as the injury starts to heal.

"What is the meaning of this?" says a cold, high voice. Harry looks around to Voldemort, whose expression is one of annoyance and anger. "Why did you bring him here?"

"I didn't—he grabbed me as I left, I didn't mean to bring him!"

"Are you so careless as to let people see you leave? Your place among my ranks is not meant to be revealed until you've killed Dumbledore. You have been careless and foolish."

"I'm sorry, I didn't—"

" _Crucio!_ "

* * *

Hands brush across his cheeks, soft, cool, and so light they're almost not there. He blinks his eyes open and looks up into a familiar handsome face and his breath catches, heart skipping a beat, every muscle in his body clenching.

" _You should heal that injury_ ," says Tom Riddle.

Harry jerks up, scrambling back and flinging out a hand towards Riddle—but nothing happens. Riddle doesn't so much as stagger, remaining crouched, a faint smile on his face. He's wearing black robes over the school uniform and gleaming black shoes.

" _Fix your arm before you_ _bleed to death._ "

Harry doesn't take his eyes from Riddle as he Wishes his arm fixed. " _You're not real_ ," he whispers, not even realising he's slipped into Parseltongue. " _You can't be real_."

" _Of course I'm not real, moron. You've cracked. He finally used one too many Cruciatus Curses on you, although that nasty bit of dark magic we did earlier might also have aided in your mental deterioration._ "

Harry glances at Voldemort, who's watching him with the same uncaring, vaguely hateful look that Harry's come to accept as his default expression. A glance around the rest of the room shows Draco now sat up, still covered in blood but his injury healed, with Lucius knelt by him, a restraining arm wrapped around Draco's chest and his eyes angry as he looks at Harry. Draco looks only fearful.

"I have told you before, Harry, to keep your insanity restrained. Get to your knees and greet your lord as you should."

As Harry gets to his knees, Riddle rises to his feet, a smirk on his face as he shifts to stand in front of Voldemort. " _It's almost like you're bowing to me_."

Harry closes his eyes as he bows his head, ignoring the hissing voice.

"My lord," he murmurs.

"You are lucky the person you brought is Lucius' son. Anyone else would be dead right now. Do not let it happen again."

"Yes, my lord."

He hears footsteps and then long fingers grab his chin, lifting his head and pulling his mask away as pain lashes through his scar. He opens his eyes to look up at red ones.

"If you ever bring someone into my sanctum again, I will give you to Bellatrix for a day and let her do as she will with you, then I will allow Merrick Mulciber half an hour with you. Frederick Nott is not the only rapist in my ranks. Perhaps that will be incentive enough to keep you alert."

" _That's unnecessarily cruel_ ," Riddle murmurs from behind Harry, whose face has gone white at Voldemort's words.

"Y-yes, my lord," he stutters. "It won't happen again."

Voldemort sends Lucius to fetch Bellatrix, whose face and hands both bare scars from the fire two months ago, then lets him take Draco from the room. Harry watches them go with his magical eye, wishing he could run to Draco and wrap him in a hug and kiss him until the fear on his face faded away.

" _He'll be fine,_ " Riddle says. " _He's Lucius' son, the Dark Lord won't hurt him._ "

Harry doesn't find that particularly comforting coming from the image of a teenage Voldemort.

He and Bellatrix are sent to kill a small family—two women and their eight year old son. Harry kills the boy, because he knows Bellatrix well enough by now to know she'll make it drawn out and unpleasant, and it sickens him less to kill the child quickly than it does to watch her torture him. He does nothing as she torments the two women, but Bellatrix is too concerned with her own fun to care that Harry doesn't participate.

When they return, Harry waits as Bellatrix fetches Lucius and Draco. Lucius gives Harry a look of utter loathing as they come in. Draco looks angry, worried, relieved, and still fearful.

"Take him back," Voldemort says. "Don't forget what I told you, Harry."

"No, my lord," Harry murmurs as Draco comes to his side.

"Go."

Harry grabs Draco's hand, makes them both invisible, and Disapparates. They reappear in the light sprinkling of trees lining the path from Hogwarts to Hogsmeade. Harry pulls off his mask and Wishes it away then throws his arms around Draco, hugging him tight.

"I'm sorry. God, Draco, I'm so sorry. I never wanted to hurt you."

Draco returns the hug with just as much vigour, clinging to him tightly. "It wasn't your fault," he says, and his voice shakes. "I shouldn't have grabbed you."

"I never wanted that, never wanted you to see me there."

Draco's grip tightens. "He'd really give you to Bellatrix and Mulciber, wouldn't he?"

Harry nods and Draco gives a shaky, almost hysterical laugh. "I never thought he'd be so terrifying. Father always talked about him with such reverence, and I know he tortured you, but I just never... Merlin. I don't know how you can face him."

"I don't have a choice." Harry finally draws back from the hug so he can look Draco in the face. "Did he hurt you?"

"No. No, Harry, I'm fine. I just talked with Father a bit."

"And you're healed, right?" he says, one hand dropping down to press against his side. Draco winces slightly. "Shit, sorry."

"It's fine. It's fixed, just tender. What about you? You're covered in blood."

"I'm fine," Harry answers dismissively, even though his arm aches. "I'm sorry, Draco."

"Don't be, it was my fault. I'll warn you next time I decide to sneak up behind you."

"Please do."

"What did you say when you spoke Parseltongue?" Draco asks him.

Harry glances around. Riddle leans against a tree, nonchalantly inspecting his nails, but he looks over when Harry's eyes land on him.

" _On the one hand,_ " he drawls, and some part of Harry's mind spares a thought for how impressive it is to drawl in the sibilant language of Parseltongue, " _he already knows you're crazy. On the other, how will he react to know you're even more so now? Hearing voices is one thing, but hallucinations... that's a one way ticket to the psych ward at Saint Mungo's._ "

"What are you looking at?"

Harry drags his gaze back to Draco. "Nothing," he lies. "The Parseltongue was just... post-seizure confusion. It's worse after..."

"The Cruciatus," he says, shuddering. "Merlin, that was awful. Hearing you scream like that..."

He pulls Harry against him again, bringing one hand up to cradle the back of his head, the other clutching at his robes. Harry closes his eyes, pressing his face to Draco's shoulder and wishing his familiar, normally comforting smell wasn't tainted by the metallic stench of blood.

"We should get back to the castle," Draco murmurs and Harry reluctantly pulls away. "Can you do anything about all this blood? I think it _might_ draw a bit of attention."

Harry Wishes it away and repairs Draco's still torn robe. "You look alright. How am I?"

"You're not covered in blood."

"Good enough, I guess," he says, dropping the invisibility on them. "C'mon. I need a seriously long, hot bath."

Draco slips his hand into Harry's as they head through the trees to the path and up to the castle. "Oh, did you get the tattoo booked?"

"Wha- oh, yeah, I did. First of April, three thirty."

"Was it busy? You were gone longer than I thought you'd be."

"I had trouble finding it," he lies. "But yeah, it was kind of busy."

They never reach Slytherin. Harry seizes again just inside the Entrance Hall, smacking his head on the hard floor, and he goes up to the Hospital Wing. Draco refuses to leave him even when he's there, standing to one side as Pomfrey checks him over.

"You're all fixed. Get some rest, Evans. You can stay here until dinner."

"Can't I go back to Slytherin?"

Pomfrey looks slightly surprised at that; he never normally turns down the opportunity to grab a nap in the Hospital Wing after a seizure.

"Please, Madam Pomfrey. I really want a bath; I promise I'll rest afterwards."

She purses her lips, but nods. "Keep someone in the bathroom with you. The last thing we need is you passing out in a tub full of water."

He agrees and heads off, but they've barely left the Hospital Wing when a voice from behind calls, "Harry!"

He pauses, turning to watch Sirius approach him and Draco, sighing at the frown on Sirius' face.

"I want a word with you, can you come with me please?"

"Is it important?" Harry asks wearily. "I just had a seizure and I really want to get back to Slytherin and rest."

"I was going to take you back to my rooms; you can rest there."

"I need a bath."

Sirius glances down at his hands, which are still covered in runes. "Yeah, I can see that. You can use ours."

Realising Sirius isn't going to let it drop, he sighs. "Yeah, alright. See you later, Draco."

He kisses him on the cheek, but Draco grabs his hand and leans in to kiss him properly, and Harry sighs softly against his mouth, leaning in closer.

Sirius clears his throat. "Don't make me take points from Slytherin for public indecency."

"Hmph!" comes a female voice, and Harry and Draco break apart to see Professor McGonagall coming down the hall carrying an armful of scrolls. "You're the last person to talk about public indecency, Sirius Black. I seem to remember putting you in detention for streaking across the Quidditch pitch in the middle of a match."

Sirius grins sheepishly. "It was a dare," he says to Harry. "Pretty sure Prongs got pictures."

"I don't ever want to see them," Harry tells him dryly.

As they head up to Sirius and James' room, Sirius asks, "Do you love him?"

"Is that what you wanted to talk to me about?"

"No. Do you?"

"Yes," Harry says, a touch defensively, but Sirius just nods.

"And why are your hands covered in ink?"

"Um..."

"Remember how we agreed you weren't going to keep secrets from me?"

That prompts Harry to glance over at Riddle, walking along beside him, hands behind his back and looking slightly bored, but he says nothing.

"If I tell you I broke a school rule, will you take points and put me in detention?"

"Depends on which school rule."

"The one that says we're not supposed to leave Hogsmeade."

Sirius pauses, turning to him and glancing up and down the hall, which is empty. "If this is about..." he glances at Harry's left arm, "then I still don't want to know."

"I booked a tattoo."

Sirius blinks. "You what?"

Harry continues walking and Sirius goes after him. "I looked up magic suppression runes—the ones that were used on the chains when... and I found these inversion and repulsion runes that can be used to counter-act them. I tested it with this and paper cuffs, and it made it so even if I was cuffed, I still kept my magic. I'm getting them tattooed on so if I ever get caught like that again, I can still escape."

Sirius doesn't say anything for a while but when they reach the door to his and James' rooms, he pauses before going inside. "You should have let me come with you. You wouldn't have been breaking school rules and it'd have been less dangerous."

"I didn't really think you'd approve."

"C'mon, kid, you know me. Sneaking out to get a tattoo without asking your guardian's permission? That's the kind of thing I'd have done. I think it's brilliant."

"But you still think I should have told you first."

Sirius gives him a wan smile. "I worry about you, and it was stupid to go out without your medical bracelet."

"I know, but I knew you'd freak out if you felt me vanish and then I'd be in serious trouble."

"Who says you're not?"

" _Sirius_ ," he whines, "you can't punish me when you said you'd do it yourself."

"Yes, I can. It's part of being a responsible adult."

"Since when were you ever a responsible adult?"

"Touché."

Harry finally gets a look at his arm when he undresses for the bath. He's healed it poorly, leaving a long, wide, raised pink scar running from the front of his shoulder down around his arm to the tip of his elbow. A little more Wishing manages to makes it less raised and white instead of pink, but he doesn't manage to get rid of it completely.

"What did you want to talk to me about?" Harry asks Sirius, when he's in the bath, the door open, but a conjured veil in place to keep him out of sight while Sirius is in the sitting room.

"Your deal. I've been reading up on demons but I need to know more about this cockney one you made the deal with. What kind of demon was he?"

"A crossroads demon," Harry answers. "I had to bury a box of stuff at a crossroads to summon him."

"What stuff?"

"Uh... a picture of me, some graveyard dirt, the bone from a black cat, and a plant but I can't remember what. It was yellow."

"Helpful. Then what happened?"

"He just appeared, like Apparating but there was no noise. He asked me what I wanted—actually he spoke to me first. He knew who I was. That I was the Boy Who Lived, I mean. He said even the people in hell know about the night the Dark Lord came to Godric's Hollow. Anyway, then he asked what I wanted and I told him and he kissed me then he left."

There's a thump of something heavy being dropped and Sirius swears, then says, "He _kissed_ you? You were seven!"

"It wasn't like a proper kiss, with tongue or anything. Just a quick peck on the lips. He said that's how deals were sealed."

"What, no signing a contract in blood? You're sure he wasn't just some paedophile?"

"If he was a paedophile, he'd have taken me away and done other stuff to me, and I wouldn't have had my magic afterwards."

"You had it immediately?"

"Yeah. I had to walk back to my aunt and uncle's, but it was a really long way and I wished I could fly and then I did."

"That's when you ran away, right?"

"Pretty much. I went back and practised to see what I could do, then I took my stuff and I left."

"Tell me what the demon looked like."

"Just like a man. He wasn't really fat but he wasn't skinny either. Um... he had brown hair with a receding hairline. I think he might have been average height but I'm not sure because I was a small kid so adults always seemed pretty big to me. He was clean shaven and he wore a black suit and a black coat. He wasn't scary, he just seemed sort of normal, except he had red eyes for a bit."

"Not all the time?"

"No. They were normal first, then when I asked if he was really a demon, he blinked and his eyes turned red—not like the Dark Lord with just the iris, but all over except the pupil—then he blinked again and they went back to normal."

"And he had a cockney accent."

"Yeah."

"Weird. What kind of demon has a cockney accent?"

"Crowley, apparently."

"You know his name? Why didn't you mention that? Names are useful, kid."

"Sorry."

He feels better when he's clean and he Wishes for some clothes from his trunk so he doesn't have to put his dirty robes back on, then heads out and joins Sirius on the sofa.

"Where's James?" he asks as he sits, tucking his feet under him and resting against the cushions. Sirius has a book in his lap and a few bits of parchment with notes on demons.

"Overseeing detention. Couple of Ravenclaws cheated on a test."

"Ravenclaws cheating on a test? The world must be ending."

"Heh. So when did you book this tat for?"

"First of April."

"Where at?"

" _Dragonthorn Designs_."

"I know the place. Surprised they're still open when so many other places have been shut down. How were you planning to get there? Spending Easter with the Malfoys again?"

"No, just sneak out the castle."

Sirius looks at him sceptically. "You were going to break through Dumbledore and the Ministry's protections?"

Harry shrugs. "Sneak through. I won't break anything."

"You can't just sneak out like that. They've put massive protections on the castle; you'd be caught the moment you tried."

"Not me."

"I know you're good, kid, but not that good."

"Bet you I am."

"Ten galleons says you're not."

"Fine. You can pay for my tat."

"Deal. You can try tomorrow, then you'll still have time to figure out how you'll get out of the castle in April."

He naps on the sofa until dinner, eats with Sirius and James, then heads back down to Slytherin where he sits with Draco to do some—

"Homework?" Draco says incredulously. "Never mind the fact that it's Saturday, after the day you've had don't you think your homework can wait until tomorrow?"

"I want to get this History essay done. It's due on Monday and if I leave it I'll have less time to work on that Potions assignment, the three chapters I need to read for Transfiguration, and the translation I've got to do for Ancient Runes."

"Transfiguration isn't due until Thursday and you can read three chapters easily; I know your Potions assignment is half done anyway; and that's our Ancient Runes, right, not seventh year stuff? Which you can have done quicker than you'll have the Transfiguration reading finished. Leave it."

" _You really shouldn't,_ " Riddle says from behind him. " _You know it'll all build up. Putting off homework this year is never a good idea._ "

Harry shuts his book. " _Says the one who told me to put off homework for the Horcruxes._ "

Draco stares at him, as do a few others sitting nearby.

" _Well at least you didn't speak in English,_ " Riddle drawls, bending down to put his mouth to Harry's ear. " _I'm still in your head, moron. I can hear you think just as clearly as I always could._ "

'Then fuck off,' he thinks viciously.

"What did you just say?" Draco asks as Harry shifts to lean against him. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just... nothing."

Draco wraps an arm around him, lowering his voice to ask, "Where you talking to the voice in your head?"

"Yes," Harry mutters.

"Do you always speak to it in Parseltongue?"

Harry just shrugs.


	81. Chapter 81

Later that night, Harry sits cross-legged on his bed, curtains drawn and charmed shut, Silencing Charm in place, and Riddle sitting opposite him. He looks exactly like the vague memory he has of the Riddle who was in the Chamber of Secrets, sixteen years old, handsome, mouth curled in a faint smirk.

"Why you?"

" _Why not me?_ "

"Because I hate you. You're the Dark Lord, you're evil, I want you dead. Why am I seeing you?"

" _I'm not the Dark Lord. I'm just the voice inside your head. I didn't choose this form; you did._ "

" _Why are you speaking in Parseltongue now_?"

" _Are you so sure I haven't always been?_ "

Harry opens his mouth to say yes, then stops. He's always had difficulty distinguishing Parseltongue from English. Maybe it did always speak in the snake language.

" _But I always speak in English to you_."

" _You're not right now_."

Harry scowls. " _My memories after making the Horcrux are hazy. I know we went to Dragonthorn Design, but... why don't I remember it properly? What happened?_ "

Riddle's mouth tightens into an annoyed scowl. " _I happened. I had control._ "

" _What do you mean you had control?_ "

Riddle moves forward suddenly, one hand on the bed beside Harry's leg to hold himself up, the other pressing against Harry's chest, his face mere inches from Harry's. His hand feels cold even through the fabric of Harry's sleeping t-shirt. " _I had control of you, of this body._ "

" _B-but you're just a voice inside my head_ ," Harry says, leaning away from him.

" _I'm you. I'm in there,_ " he says, hand pressing harder. " _You're so eager to avoid all the bad things you've been through and all the bad things you've done, that you gave up some of your control. After the kidnapping, it was worse. You couldn't handle the murder and torture so you retreated inside yourself and I took a little control. Then you split your soul and suddenly I could take over. There was less of you to fight and you're still horrified by what you did—murdered in cold blood. It was so easy._ "

He gives an annoyed sigh then and his eyes drop to look at his hand, trailing it down Harry's chest to his stomach then over his hip and onto his thigh, splaying his fingers and gripping Harry's leg. " _Then Draco went and hitched a ride and our dear lord and master decided to torture us and it broke. I lost control, your fragile little mind fractured even further, and here I am. You know it's Draco's fault, don't you? We never would have been tortured if he hadn't been there, and if it'd been someone else..._ " he lifts his hand to brush over Harry's hair, cradling the back of his head, " _your mind wouldn't have broken under the torture._ "

"It wasn't his fault," Harry says defensively, slipping back into English. "It was an accident. And you don't know that I wouldn't have... the torture broke me, not Draco."

Riddle laughs, drawing his hand away and sitting back, putting space between them again. " _Oh no, it was Draco. You see, I don't love him but you do. You're so very, very fond of him and seeing him injured like that, seeing him in the Dark Lord's sanctum, it made you afraid—for him. You started fighting, fighting to take back control from me, and then when we were tortured you broke. You took back control and now I'm here. Maybe that's why I look like I do. You were so scared of what the Dark Lord would do to Draco and you blamed me for being in control, so you made a villain of me and now you're stuck with a hallucination of the Dark Lord's teenage self. Be grateful. I could have looked like his grown self, which would have been infinitely more distressing, disturbing, and unattractive._ "

Harry frowns at Riddle. "I don't understand. You say you had control, but you also say you're a hallucination. How does that work? You can't have taken control—"

Riddle puts a finger to his lips, silencing him. " _I'm created by your mind, but by the part of your mind you dislike and want to distance yourself from. By breaking your soul, you fractured your mind to a certain degree as well and gave control to the part of your mind you don't like. When the Dark Lord tortured us and you seized, this,_ " he says, flicking a finger against Harry's forehead, " _got shook up and instead of being a part of your mind, I became a hallucination. It's really very simple—you're insane. That's all you need to know._ "

Harry sighs and decides to drop it; it's not like he never thought his insanity might progress beyond a voice in his head. "I thought I'd feel different," he says, laying back against the pillows and touching his chest like he'd find something. "After making the Horcrux, I mean."

" _You're seeing things; isn't that different enough for you?_ "

"Well, yeah, but... I don't know. I thought I'd feel different inside."

* * *

The following morning, after a long lie-in and a late breakfast, Harry leaves the castle, invisible, and takes to the air. He flies lazily down to the school's front gate and with only a brief pause he flies over it. There's no alarms, no flashing lights, and the Aurors guarding the gate do nothing to indicate they've been in any way alerted to someone leaving the school without permission. Harry smirks, flies further down the path before landing, and conjures the same glamour he used to go to _Dragonthorn Designs_ then drops the invisibility to walk the rest of the way into the village.

An hour later, he's back to the school and heads up to James and Sirius' room, letting himself in and finding Podfoot lounging on the sofa, head in James' lap.

"You owe me ten galleons," Harry says, dumping a bag of Honeydukes sweets and a couple of bottles of Butterbeer down beside them. James raises an eyebrow.

"If you've bought ten galleons worth of sweets then you deserve the diabetes you're inevitably going to get."

"I didn't," Harry says with a grin, taking a bottle of Butterbeer from the bag. "I just won a bet."

"Oh, the tattoo. He told me. You snuck out the school then?"

"Yup. Want one?"

* * *

Harry learns of Frederick Nott's death the day it happens. Theo is pulled out of their Potions class and although he doesn't return for over a week, Pansy gets a letter from her parents informing her of what happened and she tells Draco, who tells Harry. Harry hugs him and buries his face in his shoulder, hiding his smile and surprised at how viciously glad he is that someone is dead.

* * *

Draco blinks at the book Harry dumps on his lap one evening while he's relaxing in bed then looks up at him. "What's this?"

"It's a book about Occlumency. You need to learn it."

"Why?" Draco asks, flipping the book open and scanning the contents then turning to the intro. "What is it?"

"Magic to protect the mind from people trying to read it, essentially. The Dark Lord knows how to do it and you know too much about him from what I've told you from Dumbledore, so you need to learn this so he can't find out that you know about the Horcruxes and stuff."

That gets Draco's interest and he pays more attention to the book. "Do you know it?"

Harry nods. "I learnt it last year. I'll help teach you, although I've never actually done Legilimency, but I picked up Occlumency easily enough so I figure I can do this easy too."

* * *

A week later, Dumbledore sets another of his lessons. Harry purposely goes a little late; he doesn't know if Sirius has mentioned demon deals to Dumbledore yet but if he has Harry doesn't want to give the old man chance to confront him about the topic and potentially figure him out, but if Dumbledore suspects him of selling his soul, he gives no sign of it.

"Firstly," Dumbledore says to Harry and Neville, "I must quickly recount how Lord Voldemort left Hogwarts. As you might imagine, he passed all his exams with top marks and had offers from several departments in the Ministry of Magic for jobs, but he turned them all down to work in Borgin and Burkes."

"In Knockturn Alley?" Harry says, surprised, unwittingly glancing over at where Riddle leans against a bookcase. "I've seen that shop, it doesn't look like much. Why would he work there?"

" _It's a pawn shop,_ " Riddle says with the usual exasperated tone he takes when he thinks Harry is being particularly thick, " _and our dear lord and master likes collecting things, remember? He probably thought he could find all sorts of things there._ "

"...not Voldemort's first choice of job," Dumbledore says and Harry forces his attention back to him. "He first asked Professor Dippet, Hogwarts headmaster at the time, if he could remain here as a teacher."

Neville blanches. Riddle scowls at him.

"Voldemort as a teacher? I'd rather have Lockhart—I'd rather have _Umbridge_."

" _Well that's just insulting._ "

'He's not even talking about you,' Harry thinks at Riddle. Out loud he says, "Did he really want to stay here? As Defence teacher? That is the post he wanted, isn't it? I can't imagine he wanted anything else."

Dumbledore nods. "It was. I believe there are several reasons for Voldemort's request. Firstly, I think Hogwarts was the only place he ever felt at home; it is where he'd been happiest. Secondly, the castle is a stronghold of ancient magic; Voldemort likely hoped to discover every secret Hogwarts had to offer. Thirdly, being a teacher would give him great power and influence over young witches and wizards."

"Which he'd love," Harry says. "He'd have taught them all to hate Muggles. But he didn't get it, right?"

"No, he did not. Professor Dippet felt he was too young and told him to come back in a few years, if he still wished to teach. So Voldemort went off to Borgin and Burkes, which specialises in unique and powerful objects. Polite, handsome, charming, and clever as he was—" (by the bookcase, Riddle preens; Harry resists the urge to roll his eyes) "—he was soon set to jobs of a nature only found at places like Borgin and Burkes. He was sent by the partners to persuade people to part with their treasures, a job he was unusually gifted at."

" _He's starting to grow on me_ ," Riddle murmurs, looking pleased.

They go into the memory of a house elf named Hokey, who worked for a rich woman named Hepzibah Smith, to whom Voldemort was sent to make an offer for some goblin-made armour that she has, but Hepzibah has far more interesting treasures to show Voldemort—namely Slytherin's locket, and a small golden cup that once belonged to Helga Hufflpuff.

"Hepzibah Smith died two days later," Dumbledore tells them when they leave the memory. "Hokey the house-elf was convicted by the Ministry of poisoning her mistress's evening cocoa by accident."

"But Voldemort did it," Neville says, taking a seat. "Like with his father and grandparents, and made Hokey think she did it?"

Dumbledore nods. "It was some time before anyone realised the cup and the locket were missing from Hepzibah's collection, and by that time Tom had resigned from Borgin and Burke's and vanished. He wasn't seen for a very long time afterwards. Now I would like to show you one last memory."

The last memory is another of Dumbledore's and takes them into his office. The memory Dumbledore is definitely younger than the one standing beside Harry and Neville, but he's older than the man who went to visit a pre-teen Tom Riddle.

Neville gasps when the door to the office opens and Voldemort enters—he's definitely not Tom Riddle anymore. He isn't the skeletal, red-eyed monster that Harry swore loyalty to, but he's certainly not the handsome young man he was in the previous memory.

"Let us speak openly," the memory Dumbledore says to Voldemort. "Why have you come here tonight to request a job we both know you do not want?"

"A job I do not want? On the contrary, Dumbledore, I want it very much."

"Oh, you want to come back to Hogwarts, but you do not want to teach any more than you wanted to when you were eighteen. What is it you're after, Tom? Why not try an open request for once?"

"If you do not want to give me a job—"

"Of course I don't, and I don't think for a moment you expected me to. Nevertheless, you came here, you asked, you must have had a purpose."

"This is your final word?"

"It is."

"Then we have nothing more to say to each other."

"Why did he want to stay in the castle?" Neville asks Dumbledore when they're out of the memory. "If it wasn't really for teaching, then what?"

Dumbledore gestures for them to sit down and settles in his own chair before answering. "I believe he was looking for something. You'll remember that we agreed Voldemort collected items that he considered worthy, to be used as Horcruxes."

"You think he was looking for something at Hogwarts," Harry says. "What?"

Neville's face is thoughtful. "Sir, was it... something to do with the founders? He's had Slytherin's locket and Hufflepuff's cup—did he want something from Ravenclaw and Gryffindor, too?"

"I believe so. He did not have the chance to search the school that day he asked for a job, but I am sorry to say I do not know if he ever found something belonging to those two founders."

"Okay," Harry says, "so six horcruxes: the ring, the locket, the cup, and the diary, plus potentially two objects belonging to Rowena Ravenclaw and... Godric... Gryffindor..."

"What are you thinking?" Neville asks him.

"When I was a kid, I had these Famous Figurines toys."

"Oh, I know those! I had a few as well."

"The first I ever got was the Hogwarts Founders box set and each of them had a little object. Godric had a sword, Helga had a cup, Salazar had a necklace, and Rowena had a book. Oh, no, wait, the tiara. Oh! That was Ravenclaw's diadem! The one that's been missing. Do you think that's what he wanted? Ravenclaw's diadem and Godric's sword?"

"It's very possible," Dumbledore agrees. "Ravenclaw's diadem would certainly appeal to him but as you said, it's been missing for centuries."

"What about Gryffindor's sword?" Neville asks.

"I don't doubt that Voldemort would want it, but the legends say Gryffindor's sword will only present itself in a time of need to a worthy Gryffindor. Tom, of course, is a Slytherin and will likely never lay a hand on the sword."

"So if he _did_ find the diadem, that still leaves one more Horcrux we don't know about. And if he didn't, then two more."

Dumbledore nods. "I wonder what you will say when I confess that I have been curious for a while about the behaviour of the snake, Nagini?"

"Animals can be Horcruxes?" Neville asks, surprised.

"It is inadvisable," Dumbledore says, "because to confide a part of your soul to something that can think and move for itself is obviously a very risky business. However, if my calculations are correct, Voldemort was still at least one Horcrux short of his goal of six when he entered your parents' house, Harry, with the intention of killing you."

"So is that what you're looking for when you vanish to wherever you vanish?" Harry asks Dumbledore, who nods.

"I have been looking for a very long time."

"Do you think he knows?" Neville asks. "When one of them's destroyed, do you think he feels it?"

"I believe not. I think Voldemort is so immersed in evil, has done so much to himself, that these parts of him are too distant. Perhaps, when he dies, he will be aware of the loss... but he was not aware of the diary's destruction. I am told that when he learnt that the diary had been ruined, his anger was terrible to behold."

"Do you know how to destroy them?" Harry asks. "Dad destroyed the diary with a basilisk fang, but he harvested all its venom, so unless that's still in his lab... What happened to his lab, anyway? Is it Slug- Professor Slughorn's now?"

"It is," Dumbledore says, "but it seems all the basilisk venom Severus harvested was used. However, fiendfyre would destroy a Horcrux."

"Fiendfyre?" Neville queries.

"Cursed fire," Harry answers distractedly, frowning thoughtfully and ignoring Riddle when he straightens up. "I think I might be able to destroy them. Can I try?"

"That would be very dangerous," Dumbledore says.

"And fiendfyre isn't? It's really hard to control, I read."

"You're certainly correct. Either way, we need to find them first."

"I... um... I know where one is."

The air in the headmaster's office seems to grow tense with Harry's confession. Dumbledore straightens in his seat, attention focused heavily on Harry. Riddle's smirk is gone. Neville merely looks surprised.

"Harry, you need to tell me where it is," Dumbledore says firmly. "You of all people must realise the danger of possessing one of Voldemort's Horcruxes."

"I do. I really do," he says with a glance at Riddle. "It's Slytherin's locket. I found it in—" he breaks off, frowns, tries again. "Found it in—"

"Found it where?" Neville asks, but Dumbledore's face in understanding.

"In Grimmauld Place?"

Harry nods. "That was weird. Is that the Fidelius stopping me from saying it?"

"It is. Is the locket still there?"

"No, I took it. It was in the drawing room and they were going to throw it out when they were clearing stuff up, so I grabbed it. I don't really know why. But now it's in my vault at Gringotts."

"I have already given Sirius permission to take you to London during the Easter holidays," Dumbledore tells Harry, much to Harry's surprise. "If you could spare a trip to Gringotts when you go, I would like you to fetch the locket for me."

Harry nods. "I suppose it's probably not a good idea for me to Wish it out of my vault. The goblins might think someone's been stealing from me, wouldn't they?"

"It's very likely, yes," Dumbledore says.

"Can you Wish for things even if you don't know where they are?" Neville asks.

"Yeah, why?"

"Well, could you Wish for the rest of Voldemort's Horcruxes?"

"I would advise against it," Dumbledore says quickly. "They will be under very powerful protections."

"That's never really stopped me before, sir. It would save us all a lot of time and effort."

"It would also make Voldemort incredibly suspicious if his pet snake were to vanish abruptly. It would not be difficult to figure out who had taken her."

"Oh," Harry says in a small voice. "I didn't even—god, I'm an idiot."

"But you could get the others," Neville says after a slight pause. "The ring, the cup, and the diadem. He probably doesn't keep them on his person, would he? It'd be too dangerous, so they must be hidden somewhere."

"It would certainly be impressive if you found Ravenclaw's diadem," Dumbledore says. "It hasn't been seen since the days of the founders themselves."

"I thought you didn't want me getting them," Harry points out.

"I said it would be dangerous and advise against it, however knowing you as I do, I rather suspect you might try to do so anyway. If you did, I would rather you do it under supervision."

"So you want me to try and get the diadem?"

"You may certainly try."

A Wish later and Harry is holding a diadem in his lap. Riddle crouches in front of him the moment it appears in his hands, an almost hungry expression on his face as he looks at it, reaching out to trail his fingers along the old, discoloured metal.

" _Mine._ "

* * *

Harry wakes up in the Hospital Wing. Neville and Hermione are having a whispered conversation in the chairs to his right and Draco's on his left, clutching one of Harry's hands in both of his own, eyes fixed on Harry's face. Riddle sits on the end of the bed. Something about him seems different but Harry can't think what. He can't remember what happened but his head aches, his mouth tastes of blood and vomit, and he generally feels like crap, so he assumes he had a seizure—and a bad one at that if he's waking up in the Hospital Wing instead of on a floor somewhere.

"Hey, you alright?"

It's Draco who speaks, one hand leaving Harry's to come up and brush against Harry's face. On the other side of the bed Hermione and Neville break their conversation to look at him, relief spreading across their faces when they see him awake.

"Why the welcoming party?" he asks weakly.

"You had four seizures all in a row," Draco tells him.

"We were really worried about you," Hermione says, sitting on the edge of her seat to get closer to him. "They lasted for ages. Madam Pomfrey was going to call Saint Mungo's."

"Oh. What happened? I normally need a trigger for something that bad."

Hermione and Neville exchange glances. Draco's face darkens.

"They won't say," he says, eyes cold as he looks at the two Gryffindors. "I was leaving the library when you went by on a stretcher with Pomfrey and Longbottom here, but they refuse to tell me what happened."

"You know Gryffindors," Harry says to him, squeezing his hand gently. "Never trust Slytherins."

"I have a right to know," he replies, just a hint of sulkiness in his voice.

"I'll find out later."

" _You know,_ " Riddles hisses. " _You remember_."

" _I never remember, you know that._ "

Riddle smiles. " _You're scaring your friends._ "

He thinks scaring is a strong word; Hermione and Neville look startled, Draco's expression has softened slightly, a hint of worry creeping into his eyes.

"I'm going to fetch Madam Pomfrey," Hermione says. "She wanted to know when you woke up."

Harry gives a small nod and closes his eyes so he doesn't have to look at Neville or Draco—or Riddle.

" _The diadem_ ," Riddle murmurs, and Harry thinks he feels the bed shift. He feels a pressure on his stomach, Riddle's hand, almost icy cold. " _We got Ravenclaw's diadem_."

'What happened?'

" _We got Ravenclaw's diadem_ ," is all Riddle will say. His hand doesn't leave Harry's stomach.

When Pomfrey checks him over and declares him fine but in need of rest, she shoos his friends out. Draco tries to insist on staying but there's no arguing with the stern matron. Harry squeezes his hand, gives a tiny smile, and assures Draco he'll be fine. Draco leaves reluctantly, Pomfrey returns to her office, and all Harry's left with is Riddle.

"Go away," he murmurs, eyes closed.

" _I'm a figment of your imagination, I can't go away._ "

" _Move away then. You're cold. I want to sleep._ "

The bed shifts and that coldness seeps all over him. He opens his eyes and finds Riddle over him, hands on either side of Harry's shoulders, knees either side of his hips. He thinks it's unfair that someone so cruel should be so handsome, and unfairer still that his mind should give him such a hallucination.

" _What are you doing?_ "

Riddle lowers himself to his elbows. His face is mere inches from Harry's and Harry feels trapped but with no inclination to move. " _Sleep._ "

Harry shivers, closes his eyes, and sleeps.


	82. Chapter 82

"Harry!"

He turns, blinks, looks up at Sirius.

"What are you doing here, kid? You're meant to be in the Hospital Wing and it's well past curfew anyway."

He looks around. He's standing in the library and there's a book open in his hands, a book about souls. He looks back up at Sirius.

"Sleepwalking," he says, although he's fairly certain he's never sleepwalked in his life.

"Sleep-studying by the looks of it." Sirius takes the book from him, skimming the page and frowning. "Soul transfers?" He looks around, but it's late and there's no one else in the library. Even so, he lowers his voice when he speaks. "Is this about your deal? A soul transfer wouldn't help you. I've already looked into it; you'd only get killed in a different body."

Harry nods. Riddle stands to one side, arms folded over his chest, looking annoyed.

"C'mon, let's get you back to the Hospital Wing."

Once there, Sirius transforms into Padfoot and curls up at the foot of the bed. Harry assumes the staff have been told about him because Pomfrey looks only vaguely annoyed to find Padfoot there the next morning. It's almost eleven.

"I missed morning classes."

"You needed the rest," Pomfrey tells him. "Especially after your little midnight wander. You can stay until lunch then eat in the Great Hall if you want and go to your afternoon classes. If James or Sirius don't come by before then, you can take their dog back to their rooms."

Padfoot wags his tails and huffs.

He walks Padfoot back to James and Sirius' rooms just before classes end and he transforms back into Sirius once inside.

"Eat lunch here," Sirius says. "I want to talk to you."

"About what?" Harry asks, sitting on the sofa turned towards Sirius, toeing off his shoes, and tucking his feet under him. Sirius doesn't answer until he's called for a house elf and got them a tray of small, triangle cut sandwiches and some pumpkin juice.

"This voice in your head."

Harry puts down the tuna sandwich he just picked up. Riddle, who leans against the arm of the sofa, his back to Harry's, turns his head.

"You remembered that too," he says quietly.

"I did. I'm not calling you crazy, kid, and I'm sorry for saying it before when we were captured, but have you thought about getting help?"

"No."

"Harry—"

"I'm not getting locked up."

"They wouldn't lock you up, Harry."

Harry looks at him with an expression not unlike the one Snape would give students he thought were particularly stupid. "I've got a voice inside my head. I _am_ crazy. They'll lock me up and I don't want that. It's fine, anyway. It doesn't bother me."

It's half true. The voice didn't really bother him. The hallucination on the other hand...

"There is such a thing as outpatient treatment."

"They probably can't do anything anyway. It probably happened because of the brain damage."

Sirius frowns. "Have you been hearing it since you were a child?"

"No, just since Professor Moody put the Imperius curse on us."

"You think that the Imperius combined with your brain damage caused you to hear voices? You know mental damage from Imperius and Cruciatus Curses can be fixed."

"Not always. Neville's parents can't be."

"That's reason not to try, is it?"

"Yes."

Sirius raises an eyebrow. Harry sighs.

"I don't want to, Sirius. I've spent so much time in and out of the hospital, I don't want more. I've only got a year and less than two months left. I don't want to spend it being looked at like I'm crazy by healers who probably can't do anything."

"I'm working on finding a way to break the deal," Sirius says at the same moment Riddle hisses, " _We sorted that._ "

"It's not guaranteed," Harry answers them both. "I don't want to spend the rest of my life visiting the hospital."

"How do you want to spend it?" Sirius asks quietly. Harry shrugs and doesn't look at him. "You got a bucket list?"

"A what?"

"A bucket list. A list of things you want to do before you die. There has to be something."

"I want to sit my NEWTs."

Sirius stares, sniggers, then burst into laughter.

"Don't mock at me!"

"S-s-sorry! I'm not—I'm not mock-" He can't complete his sentence through the laughter and Harry bends down to pull on his shoes. Sirius reaches over to grab his arm but Harry jerks away. The laughter fades and Sirius grabs him again.

"Hey, kid, I'm sorry. I wasn't mocking you."

"Yes, you were."

"No, I wasn't. It's just very _you_."

"And I'm funny, am I?"

"No, that's—look, I'm not mocking you, Harry. I don't even know why I found it so funny. It's just... it's not easy for me to think about the fact that you might be dead in little over a year, you know. And when I asked if you had a bucket list I was expecting something like flying with a pro Quidditch team or seeing the ruins of Pompeii or something like that. You're probably the only sixteen year old who'd answer that question with 'I want to sit my NEWTs'."

"They happen in June. I'll be dead by then."

All the humour is gone from Sirius' face and voice now. "Do you think you could? If they were a little early, do you think you'd be ready?"

"Yes."

"You got expelled about this time last year. Reckon you could cram another year of study into three months?"

"Two and a half. Exams start on second of June."

"What do you reckon?"

"I don't know. I didn't have lessons or homework last year so I could do my studying all the time. I don't think I could, not for NEWTs. But it's fine. I know I won't be able to do them. I'm getting my Ancient Runes and History of Magic one this year. It'll do."

"What about January, when the re-sits happen?"

It's tempting. Not to mention if he took them in January, he could spend his last few months doing something other than schoolwork.

" _Just the slight problem of being a wanted murderer by then,_ " Riddle says. Harry ignores him.

"I'll think about it. It would be cool to see Pompeii though."

Sirius leaves the conversation at that and they eat their lunch in companionable silence until Dumbledore comes by the rooms half an hour before lunch ends, asking to speak to Harry alone. Sirius leaves reluctantly, giving Dumbledore a warning glare as he leaves.

"I told Sirius," Dumbledore says, taking the spot Sirius vacated, "that you were handling a dark magic object when your seizure happened. As you can tell, he's a little unhappy with me."

"Well it's true and it's not your fault I seized. It happens, he knows that."

"Parental figures can get very protective when their children are sick."

"He worries too much."

Dumbledore gives a small smile. "I think in this case it was justified. Are you recovered alright?"

"Yes, sir."

"Do you remember what happened before your seizure?"

"I got Ravenclaw's diadem."

"You don't recall what happened next?"

Harry frowns. "Well, I assume I seized. Didn't I?"

"Not immediately. You became quite distressed first, speaking rapidly in Parseltongue, cornering yourself and clutching the diadem possessively. It was almost as though you were trying to keep it from someone."

He's suddenly hyper aware of Riddle's cold against his back.

"You remember none of this?"

Harry shakes his head.

"Nor do you remember destroying the diadem?"

Harry starts. "I did?"

"Quite thoroughly. There's nothing left but a twisted lump of metal."

Harry's expression is one of pure horror. "B-b-but t-t-that's—I _destroyed it?_ "

"Why the distress? You destroyed a Horcrux, Harry. It's one step closer to defeating Voldemort."

"I destroyed Ravenclaw's diadem! Professor, I've ruined a priceless historical artifact!"

Dumbledore smiles. "It was a necessary loss, though I'm sure you'll agree that next time we'll find some other way to destroy the Horcrux."

"Nevermind that, I'm a _menace_ to history!"

When Dumbledore goes, Harry remembers something he said during their lesson and confronts Sirius about it as they both head off to classes.

"Dumbledore said he gave you permission to take me out to London in the holidays."

"Yeah, I figured you should have someone with you when you go to get the tat done."

"You can't come with me. They'll figure out who I am."

"You're going in disguise?"

"Duh. Too young to get one as myself plus they'd have been suspicious when I turn up in London when I'm supposed to be at Hogwarts."

"Well, we can disguise me too. I'll just be there as a friend for support."

"What about James?"

"He's staying. He doesn't need someone holding his hand all the time anymore."

"The Bond?" Harry asks quietly, swivelling his eye to check there's no one in listening distance.

"It's fine. Couple of hours apart won't hurt us."

"Alright. I have to go to Gringotts too. There's something in my vault I have to get out for Professor Dumbledore."

Sirius raises a questioning eyebrow.

"It's to do with our lessons; I can't really tell you about it. He said that, not me!" he adds hastily when Sirius frowns. "You can't be annoyed at me for not telling you things when it's Dumbledore telling me not to tell you."

"I can be annoyed at Dumbledore though."

* * *

That evening, Draco and Harry lie on the former's bed, Harry contentedly cuddled against Draco and well on his way to falling asleep to the sound of Draco's heartbeat and the feel of his fingers playing with Harry's hair.

"How are you supposed to defeat the Dark Lord if destroying his Horcruxes makes you seize like that? It's too dangerous."

"We'll find a way," Harry murmurs. "There's other ways to destroy them."

"Good. Destroying him isn't worth your life."

* * *

The sixth years who turn seventeen before April twenty-first, when the first Apparition test is, get the opportunity to go into Hogsmeade for extra lessons on the sixteenth of March. As neither Harry nor Draco are eligible for this, they spend the afternoon in the Room of Requirement, initially working on Draco's Occlumency and Harry on his Legilimency at the same time. Draco picks the skill up quickly; he can't forcibly eject an invasion on his mind yet, but he is good at hiding thoughts and memories behind others, mostly by thinking graphically about the two of them having sex.

"Are you going to do that if it's someone else?" Harry asks him, withdrawing from his mind and aware that his face is bright red from the images he's just seen.

"Maybe," Draco says with a smirk, but it fades when Harry's embarrassment grows and he leans over to kiss his cheek. "No," he says. "I'll think of other things."

"Good. We should study now."

Draco pulls a face. "Boring. I'm hungry. We should get a snack."

They go to the kitchen to order a bowl of strawberries, but Harry insists on studying anyway. Draco agrees as long as they can return to the Room of Requirement and although he brings books as well, he doesn't study, instead distracting Harry with kisses and semi-innocent touches. They haven't had sex since Valentine's Day, although Draco's brought it up a couple of times. Harry isn't keen on the idea when he's still seeing Riddle everywhere. He doesn't fancy being watched by a hallucination of the Dark Lord while he's having sex.

"I've got a question for you," Draco says, lying on his back on the floor and licking strawberry juice from his fingers. Harry doesn't look up from his Transfiguration work, but makes a noise to show he's listening. "You know how you like to watch people do _stuff_ —" Harry rolls his eyes and Draco grins "—well have you ever wanted to watch me with someone else?"

Harry doesn't answer immediately, because yes he has but he loves Draco and he's pretty sure that saying he's imagined Draco sleeping with other people isn't a sign of love. But at the same time he wonders if Draco's asking because he's trying to trap Harry in disloyalty—though he can't imagine why when Harry's never been anything but loyal to him—or if it's because he wants to have sex with someone else. That thought then comes with the worry that maybe Draco doesn't really love him and that this is supposed to be a way to ease out of the relationship.

"Do you want to do stuff with someone else?" he asks to avoid answering.

"No," Draco answers just a little too quickly. Riddle makes a false noise of sympathy and something must show on Harry's face because Draco sits up, reaching over to takes his hand. "I love you, Harry, I do, but..."

"But you want to sleep with someone else. Who?"

"No one in particular. Look I'm not going to cheat on you and it's not about not loving you, I swear. You know I've been smitten on you long before you even realised. I'm never going to do anything that might make me lose you because I would hate that."

"Then what is it?"

"It's just that I'm a horny teenage boy and you seem kind of reluctant about it since we did it. And I'm not trying to guilt you into anything," he says when Harry looks away, a flush creeping up his cheeks. "Please don't think I'm pressuring you into anything, because I swear I'm not. If you don't want to then you don't want to, it's fine, really. I just thought, if you did ever fantasize about watching me with someone else then we could find someone and that would satisfy me and fulfil one of your fantasies. But it's fine if you don't want to. Like I said, just an idea and I'm not going to cheat on you. I do love you. You know that, right?"

Harry nods, pushing his work away and leaning in to kiss him.

"And you know I love you even if I say I have thought about you with other people?" he asks nervously.

"I do," Draco assures him. "Anyone in particular?"

"No. Just faceless people really."

"So... you're open to the idea?"

"Yeah. I guess."

"You guess?"

Harry shrugs. "I'm just not sure if... I mean, won't it be weird?"

"No. I don't think so. It's just like a threesome really and people have threesomes all the time, so it's probably not weird. As long as we're both comfortable with it. And whatever guy we invite. It will be a guy, I'm not into girls."

"I know. Who would even do that?"

"I can think of one person..."

* * *

"So let me get this straight," Tyler says, looking between Draco and Harry as they stand in an empty classroom. "You want to fuck me while he watches?"

Harry face is scarlet and he can't look Tyler in the eye, but Draco nods.

"Okay."

Harry glances up, surprised. "Okay?"

"Yeah. You think I'd turn down this opportunity? Even if I didn't have an exhibitionist kink, as far as first times go I'd say this sounds pretty awesome."

"Why am I not surprised you have an exhibitionist kink?" Draco says.

"But you already had sex," Harry points out.

"With a girl, never with a guy, and I thought I'd lost all hope of fucking Draco. Seriously, this is great. When can we do it?"

* * *

" _Fuck!_ "

"Do you have to be so vocal?"

Tyler moans, hands clenching in the sheets, pressing his forehead to the pillow. "Oh, god, fucking..." he trails off into an incoherent groan, thrusting his hips back against Draco. Harry, sitting in a chair in front of the circular bed the Room provides, watches them with lips parted slightly, hands rubbing at his thighs as his eyes move hungrily over their bodies, lingering briefly on Draco's face, on their joined hips, on Draco's hand as it slides around Tyler's side and down to wrap around his cock. Draco never takes his eyes from Harry's face.

Tyler falls asleep almost immediately afterwards. Draco lies on his back next to him and Harry slips from his chair to kneel by the bed and bend over to give Draco an upside down kiss.

"You looked like you were enjoying yourself," Draco says quietly, reaching up to touch his face.

"So did you."

"Prefer fucking you, but it wasn't bad."

Harry's cheeks go pink and he smiles. He climbs up on the bed, settling beside Draco, head resting on his chest.

" _You're a horrible person_."

Harry closes his eyes. While they fucked, Riddle was behind Harry's chair, refusing to watch and complaining the entire time. Now he sits on the edge of the bed nearest Tyler, one leg crossed over the other and an elbow resting on his knee.

" _First you murder his friend, and now you watch your boyfriend fuck him. Can you imagine his reaction if he found out? How much he would despise you if he knew you'd done this after betraying him like you did?_ "

'Leave me alone,' Harry thinks.

" _Such a selfish child. If you were half as decent as you like to think you are, you'd never have done this. You'd have stopped being his friend entirely at the start of the year, because you're not his friend, are you? How can you be when you've murdered someone close to him?_ "

Harry presses closer to Draco, who tightens the arm wrapped around him and kisses Harry's hair, and Harry does his best to ignore the guilt burning through him.

* * *

"Oh!"

"What?"

"Nothing."

"You're lying, Prongs. What's in there?"

James shakes his head, back to the door.

"Prongs, c'mon. What is it?"

"Nothing. We can use the Room later; we can't get it to do what we want right now anyway. Let's just go."

"It's a couple, isn't it?"

"Yes. Let's go, Padfoot."

"Who?"

"I'm not telling. Stop asking, it's pulling on the Bond."

Sirius instantly looks guilty. "Sorry, Prongs."

James steps away from the door and jabs a finger in Sirius' side. "Let's—Sirius!"

All three boys jerk awake when the door is thrown open. Tyler blinks stupidly, turning his head towards the door then swearing loudly. Draco jerks a sheet up to cover himself and looks half embarrassed, half worried. Harry takes one look at who's there and turns white as a sheet.

"I tried to stop him," James says apologetically. "Sirius—"

"Are you kidding me?!" Sirius cries, looking between the three boys. "Thirty-bloody-seven and I've never had a threesome. You're sixteen and you've already managed it!"

Harry stutters, unable to decide if he's embarrassed, outraged, or just annoyed at himself for not locking the door. Draco clears his throat.

"Are we in trouble?" Tyler asks.

"No," James tells him, grabbing Sirius' arm and dragging him out. "Just—you should—"

He doesn't finish, just jerks Sirius out the door and slams it shut behind them.

"Well," Tyler says. "That was a bit awkward."

"A _bit?_ " Draco echoes. "I might as well give up on my healing career and drop out of school right now. I can never show my face again."

"It's not that bad," Tyler says, sitting up and stretching.

"That's my godfather!" Harry cries, voice muffled from where his face is now pressed into a pillow.

"Alright, so maybe it's a little bad," Tyler agrees, getting up and searching through the clothes on the floor for his own. "Getting caught by your dad and godfather's fairly embarrassing, but at least we didn't get punished. Besides, it's the first day of the holidays. Two weeks of no classes, you'll only have to see them at meal times. By the time term starts, the whole thing will be forgotten."

"You're ridiculously optimistic, Lyle," Draco drawls. "I know I'm never going to forget walking in on my parents; I think it probably works the other way around as well."

"I really think you two are over-reacting. It could be worse."

"How could it possibly be worse?" Harry asks.

* * *

"This is your fault, Lyle."

"How is it my fault, Malfoy?"

"You're the one who said it could be worse. You tempted fate."

Cid plunks himself down at the Slytherin table, grinning broadly as he looks between the three. "Is it true then? You three fucked?"

"I'm going back to Slytherin," Harry says, standing up from the table. "I'm going to bed and I'm never coming out."


	83. Chapter 83

Harry isn't summoned during the holidays. Not that he minds, but he can't help worrying a little about whether it's a bad sign or if it's just that Voldemort knows he's staying in the castle and doesn't expect him to be able to leave.

Sirius turns up at Slytherin on Easter Sunday and insists Harry comes out and talk to him. Harry reluctantly goes out to meet him; he's been avoiding him and James all week, eating his meals quickly and staying in Slytherin as much as possible. As they stand in the corridor outside Slytherin, Harry stares at the floor.

"I came to talk about Tuesday."

"Tuesday?" Harry says with a frown.

"April first. The day of your tat."

"Oh! Yeah. I suppose, um... what about it?"

"What time is it?"

"Three thirty."

"And you want to go to Gringotts, which is hell to get through these days. I think we'd best go in the morning, just in case we're in Gringotts longer than expected. If we do finish early, we can get a late lunch and talk until you're not so embarrassed and can actually look at me."

Harry flushes but still doesn't quite lift his gaze to look at him.

"You realise there's worse things than getting caught in a threesome by your godfather. Kind of proud of you, kid."

"Did you need anything else?"

Sirius chuckles. "No. See you Tuesday."

* * *

On Tuesday they walk down to Hogsmeade, slip down a deserted alley, and Disapparate together. The reappear in the Leaky Cauldron and head out into Diagon Alley, Harry Wishing for them to go unnoticed so no one makes a fuss about the Boy Who Lived being in London during the school year, even in the holidays; he can't put his disguise up for the tattoo shop until after they've been to Gringotts—not that he ever has to.

"Oh no!"

Several more stores have been shut down since they were there the previous summer, and now _Dragonthorn Designs_ is among them.

"Must have happened recently," Sirius murmurs, looking at the shattered windows that haven't yet been boarded up and the sheaves of tattoo design and pages from the appointment book that are scattered all over the floor of the shop.

"Why would they destroy a tattoo shop?" Harry asks as they carry on towards Gringotts.

"Owners must have done something to upset the Death Eaters," Sirius answers. "Or maybe they just weren't purebloods. Who knows? We'll find you somewhere else to get it done."

"Where? There isn't a shop in Hogsmeade."

"I'm sure we can find a tattooist somewhere. If not, we'll figure it out ourselves. You said it was done with a spell and special ink, so we just need to get our hands on the ink and figure out the spell."

"I guess. I was looking forward to having it. Maybe I should just book it at a Muggle place; there are plenty of those."

It takes them three hours to get let down to Harry's vault. As well as the locket, Harry withdraws a substantial amount of gold. Aside from not wanting to wait three hours again just to get some money out, Riddle points out that when he's killed Dumbledore, it'll be a good idea to have some money when the Aurors are after him. Much that Harry dislikes thinking about the murder he's been assigned with, he can't argue with Riddle's logic.

* * *

"Let me see it."

"I didn't get it. The shop's been ransacked, it's closed down."

"Damn," Draco says. "What are you going to do?"

Harry shrugs, tucking his bag of gold into his trunk and locking it then rising and Wishing the dorm door shut as he draws Slytherin's locket from his pocket. "Find somewhere else I guess. Look."

Draco comes closer, frowning at it. "What's that?"

"It's Slytherin's locket," Harry tells him in a quiet voice. "One of the Horcruxes."

Draco pauses with his hand raised to touch it. "Where in Merlin's name did you get it?" he asks in a stunned whisper.

"Order of the Phoenix headquarters, summer before last. I didn't know it was a Horcrux, I just took it and it's been in my Gringotts vault since then. I saw it in the memories Dumbledore showed me and found out it's Slytherin's, and Dumbledore reckons it's a Horcrux and asked me to bring it to him."

"You're not going try to destroy it like the last one," Draco says with a hint of worry. "You'll seize again."

"We'll find another way," Harry assures him. "I have to take it to him now. I'll see you later."

* * *

" _You can't use magic on me._ "

Harry stares at Riddle. He's backed into the corner of one of the dungeon rooms, Riddle's hands on either side of him, the locket held behind his back in both his own hands.

"You're not real."

" _Of course I'm not. That's why you can't use magic on me._ "

"But I can touch you. Why can I touch you if you aren't real?"

Riddle lifts one of his hands to stroke the back of his fingers along Harry's cheek, making him shiver. " _Hallucinations can be more than just visual. They can affect all senses. Give me the locket._ "

"Why?"

" _To destroy it. You need my help to do it, but if you fight me like you did last time you'll wake up in the Hospital Wing again._ "

"I don't need you. You're just a... a hallucination. You're not—"

" _You're hurting me, Harry._ "

His breath catches. It's the first time Riddle—as voice or hallucination—has ever actually used his name and it sends shivers down his spine.

" _I am a part of you. Just because I'm not real in the traditional sense of the word doesn't mean I'm not real to you. You need me to destroy the locket. Just hand it over and we can move on_."

"Dumbledore said to bring it straight to him."

" _When have we ever cared for Dumbledore? He's a meddling old fool. He's teaching us valuable information, I'll give him that, but he's still the man that gave you to the Dursleys—twice. He has no way to destroy the Horcrux; we do. You know he won't let us do it when we reach his office, so let's get it over with. Give me the locket, Harry._ "

* * *

Dumbledore frowns as he inspects the two pieces of Slytherin's locket, the glass inside both pieces now cracked.

"You shouldn't have destroyed this, Harry. It was incredibly dangerous to do so, especially unsupervised. After what happened last time, I'd have thought you realised that."

"I'm sorry, professor," he apologises, sat stiffly in his chair. Riddle is behind him, both hands on Harry's shoulders, cold fingers digging into the soft flesh under his shoulder blades.

"Why did you do it?"

"It needed to be destroyed and we have no other way of doing it."

"You put yourself at a terrible risk and now I can never be sure if it was definitely a Horcrux."

"I'm fine, sir, and it was. When I destroyed it, it screamed and gave off a weird black smoke. Why else would it do that if it wasn't a Horcrux?"

Dumbledore's still frowning. "Regardless, you should have brought it to me first, as I asked."

* * *

Tyler comes up to the table where Harry and Draco are working on their holiday homework the Saturday before classes start, dropping to his knees and resting his arms on the table.

"So I was wondering if there's any chance of a round two," he asks them, looking hopeful. Draco looks up from his Herbology assignment to look across the table at Harry.

"Harry?"

"Not interested," he says without pausing in writing his Charms essay.

"You're not?" Tyler says, disappointed. "At all?"

"No."

Tyler glances at Draco, who jerks his head in a motion telling him to leave, and Tyler slouches off unhappily.

"I thought you enjoyed it," Draco says quietly when Tyler's left.

"I did. It doesn't mean I have any inclination to do it again. I have two months before I'm sitting a couple of NEWT exams; I need to focus on studying, not waste time watching you and him fuck."

Draco raises an eyebrow at his cavalier mention of sex. There's not even a hint of red in his cheeks; if anything, they seem slightly paler than normal.

"Are you alright?"

"I will be if I can finish this essay without further interruption."

"Fine," Draco replies coldly, but he's less focused on his assignment and as soon as Harry finished his essay, Draco asks a touch bitterly, "Can we talk now?"

Harry taps his wand to the essay to dry the ink then rolls it up. "Not if it's more about sex. I've given my answer."

"Does what we did bother you?" Draco asks him. "You've been kind of distant and cold these past few days. If it did bother you, you can tell me."

"It didn't bother me. Don't you think if it had, I'd have mentioned it earlier?"

"Then what's your problem?"

"I don't have a problem."

"It seems like you have a problem. You've hardly spoken to me the last few days."

"I've been studying."

"Yet you've still got homework."

"I've got two seventh year classes on top of everything else, Draco. I've got a lot of work."

"That's all it is? There's nothing else bothering you?"

"Merlin, Draco, will you give it a rest? I'm fine."

* * *

"Is everything alright between you and Malfoy?" Hermione asks Harry outside of Potions on Monday afternoon.

"Fine. Why?"

"You hardly talked in Ancient Runes or Defence Against the Dark Arts this morning, and... well, I heard a rumour that one of you cheated with Tyler Lyle. I didn't think it was true because some people say it was you and others say it was Malfoy, but... I just wanted to make sure everything's okay."

"We're fine; neither of us cheated, it was a threesome."

Hermione looks startled, then embarrassed. "Oh. That's... um... well, as long as everything's okay between you."

* * *

It's Colin and Dennis Creevey who find Draco the following Saturday, unconscious on the floor of an empty classroom, suffering the effects of several unpleasant jinxes and hexes and with the word CHEATER written across his forehead in large black letters.

* * *

"What do you mean it's in permanent bloody marker?! I can't go around with this on my head for the rest of my life! It's not even bloody true!"

"You'll have to use Concealing Charms," Madam Pomfrey tells him as she sets the mirror down. "I'm sorry, Mr Malfoy, but there's nothing to be done about it."

"I'll fucking kill them!"

"Language, Mr Malfoy!" Pomfrey scolds. "I understand your annoyance but that's no need to speak like that. Now try not to move too much. You'll need to reapply the salve in precisely one hour."

* * *

Harry hears about it at dinner from Ed Coleman, who hears it from his housemate Luna Lovegood, who hears it from Ginny Weasley, who hears it straight from Colin Creevey. Harry leaves the Slytherin table before Ed even finishes talking, tearing out the Great Hall and up the stairs to the Hospital Wing. There's only one bed occupied, with a curtain pulled around it to hide the patient from view, but a glimpse with his eye shows Draco lying on the bed on his front and he slips around it.

"Oi! Oh, it's you."

"What—" Harry breaks off with a gasp at seeing the word written on Draco's forehead, and Draco scowls.

"It's in permanent fucking ink."

Harry's expression hardens. He makes a Wish and the word vanishes. "Not anymore it isn't," he says, taking the mirror from the end table. Draco rubs at his now clean forehead.

"I can't move. Come down here so I can kiss you."

"Why can't you move?"

"Because it bloody hurts. Take a look, but carefully."

Harry gently lifts the sheet covering him, eyes going wide when he sees the numerous painful-looking, pus filled boils covering Draco's buttocks. He can also see the edge of bruising along his side

"Who was it?" he asks angrily as he lowers the sheet again. "I'll kill them for you. Maybe literally."

"I think you might get expelled for that, and I don't know who it was. They jumped me from behind and blindfolded me. I never saw their faces but it was at least three girls and one of them was called Emma."

Harry bends down to kiss his cheek, stroking his hair and promising, "I'll find them and make them pay."

He turns to leave, but Draco reaches out and grabs his wrists. "Stay a while."

"I need to find who did this, Draco."

"Vengeance can wait. This is the most emotion you've shown in over a week; I'd like to enjoy it."

"I've shown emotion."

"Annoyance if anyone asks you if you're alright, or interrupts you while you're working, or talks to you in general. You've just been cold and distant otherwise, even to me. I was starting to think you didn't care."

"Don't say that," Harry says, turning to face him properly. "You know I care about you. I love you."

"So what's been going on with you lately?"

"Nothing. There isn't," he insists when Draco gets an annoyed and sceptical look. "I don't know, okay? Maybe it's just the stress of all the work finally getting to me. But I'll try and be better, alright? We can even do something together when you're fixed up, something that's not studying."

"Sure your workload can handle you taking an entire afternoon off? Because I'm settling for nothing less than at least a whole afternoon."

"I'll manage," Harry says, and even smiles a bit.

* * *

"How is he?" Tyler asks when Harry gets back to Slytherin.

"Better than the bitches who attacked him will be when I'm done with them."

"Do you know who did it?" Cid asks. "Or why they did it?"

"They think he cheated on me and apparently feel I'm incapable of taking my own revenge. I don't know who did it yet, but I will."

Cid and Tyler don't ask what he plans to do to them when he does; there's a glint of something in his eyes that makes them both a little unnerved.

That evening, a little before curfew, Harry leaves Slytherin and goes to the same classroom Draco said he was left in. Riddle stands behind him as he faces the door, mouth curled into a smirk, his hands resting on Harry's shoulders. He doesn't really bother Harry anymore; even his perpetual cold has become familiar.

"Alright," Harry mutters. "Let's go. The people who attacked Draco Malfoy today will come to this room."

Ten minutes later, four girls stand in the room with him, looking confused. He only vaguely recognises them as faces he's seen around the school, but he doesn't know what house or year they're in—younger than him though, he thinks—nor does he particularly care. Another carefully worded Wish has them collapsing to the floor with shrieks of pain and surprise as boils pop up all over their skin and only the thought of expulsion and not being able to take his two NEWTs keep him from following Riddle's suggestion on what more he could do to them. He stuns them and conjures a permanent marker, crouching by each to scrawl BITCH across their foreheads before he makes them forget seeing him and then leaves.

He's not really surprised when Sirius approaches him the next morning at breakfast and asks for a word. They head out into the Entrance Hall and off to one side, away from the people coming and going from breakfast.

"You know you shouldn't have done that."

"Done what?" Harry asks innocently.

"You know what. We might not be able to prove you attacked those girls but I know you did it."

"Attacked what girls?"

Sirius shakes his head, a faint smile on his face. "It's nice that you wanted to get revenge for Malfoy, but next time let the staff deal with it."

"I've really no idea what you're talking about. I don't know who attacked Draco, but if I find out, I'll certainly come straight to a professor and let them know so the person or persons responsible can be properly punished."

"Sure you will," Sirius says dryly.

* * *

Draco's let out of the Hospital Wing boil free a few days later. He's smug about what happened to the girls—who unfortunately no longer have BITCH scrawled on their foreheads; McGonagall insists Harry remove it as he removed CHEATER from Draco—but is a little annoyed that Harry hadn't waited so Draco could help in his own revenge.

"I am a Malfoy," he whines as they sit together in a single armchair in the corner of the Slytherin common room the evening after he's let out. "We do things ourselves. It makes me look weak if I need someone else taking my revenge."

"You can always take your own revenge as well."

"There's no point, it's been done. It wouldn't be as satisfying."

"I'm sorry," Harry apologises insincerely. "Next time you get ambushed and hexed I'll remember not to do anything that might offend your pureblood pride."

"Good," Draco grumbles at the same moment Riddle, sat on the arm of the chair on Harry's side, turns his head to look at the blond with an expression of sudden realisation.

" _Oh_ ," he breathes, a smile spreading across his face. Harry glances at him, frowning slightly, but Riddle says nothing more. The self-satisfied little grin, however, doesn't leave his face all night.

* * *

" _He's really quite beautiful, isn't he?_ "

Harry rolls over, looking over at Draco's bed and then sitting up abruptly. Riddle bends over Draco's sleeping form, inspecting his face and reaching to brush his fingers against the pale skin. Harry scrambles out of his own bed and crosses the space between them, grabbing Riddle's wrist and pulling him away from Draco.

" _Don't you touch him._ "

Riddle chuckles, lifting his free hand to stroke Harry's cheek instead. " _I was just admiring him_."

" _He's mine. You don't touch him. You stay away from him._ "

" _I'm just a hallucination, Harry,_ " he hisses softly. " _I can't hurt him._ "

" _Stay away._ "

Riddle smirks. His hand shifts to cradle the back of Harry's head, grip cold and hard, and he steps closer so Harry can feel the cold of him all through his body. Harry lets go of his wrist to push at his chest with both hands, but Riddle's surprisingly solid and snakes his now free hand around Harry's waist, holding him in place. His lips brush against Harry's in the ghost of a kiss.

" _Make me._ "

Harry shoves him but Riddle expects it and instead of getting pushed away, Riddle moves forwards, shoving Harry back until he knocks into Draco's bedside cabinet. His hand grips Harry's hair and he can't help gasping slightly at the brief pain and the intense cold, and then Draco shifts, lifting his head and looking at him sleepily.

"Harry? What you doing?"

Riddle lets go of his hair, stroking the back of his head once, mouth still curled into a smirk as he steps back, never taking his eyes from Harry as he moves away.

"Harry? You okay?"

Harry nods, forcing himself to look down at Draco. "Can I sleep with you tonight?"

In answer, Draco just shifts over and lifts the covers, and Harry crawls in with him.

"Bloody hell, you're cold," Draco grumbles, but he wraps an arm around him and pulls him close. He's unconscious again within minutes. Harry doesn't sleep for hours.

* * *

"Why are you so cold?"

It's Saturday and as promised Harry's spends the afternoon with Draco and there's not a single book in their presence.

"We're fifty feet in the air," Harry deadpans.

"It's also perfectly warm, you've been pressed up against me for half an hour, and you're wearing a cloak. You shouldn't be cold."

"Good excuse to stay stuck to you then, isn't it?"

"For all the good it's doing," Draco mutters, but he has no complaints about being pressed chest to back against Harry as they share a broom to fly together, even if the other boy is cold.

They lounge by the lake afterwards, finding a semi-deserted spot where Draco can lean against a tree with Harry between his legs and resting against him, Draco's arms wrapped around him. Harry appreciates the familiar warmth of his body; it pushes away some of the cold that Riddle brings. It also makes him realise just how distant he's been to Draco since his trip to London. They haven't really touched each other in the past couple of weeks, despite sitting together in classes and during study sessions, and he misses it.

* * *

The twenty-first of April brings the first chance for the sixth years to take their Apparition test if they're old enough. They go down to Hogsmeade in the afternoon, which leaves only Harry, Draco, and Ernie Macmillan in double Potions. With just the three of them, Slughorn tells them to surprise him with something amusing.

"The Prince got any suggestions on something 'amusing' to brew?" Draco asks Harry as they flick through their books.

"Oh, yeah, I'm sure Dad was really the kind of teenager to say 'hey this looks _amusing_ '," Harry mutters.

Draco raises an eyebrow. "It's Dad now?"

"Shut up."

Harry brews an Elixir to Induce Euphoria, the recipe for which has been heavily corrected. It fits Slughorn's requirements and Harry finds it amusing that someone as grouchy as Snape would make such improvements to an elixir for euphoria, until it occurs to him that it's entirely possible Snape improved it so much because he felt the need to use it himself.


	84. Chapter 84

" _He'd probably like it if you joined him_."

The words are whispered in Harry's ear as he lies on his side in bed, the curtains drawn but his magical eye looking through them and through the curtains around Draco's bed to watch the blond masturbate.

" _You should_ ," Riddle murmurs. He lies behind Harry, cold against his back, propped up on one arm while his other hand brushes along Harry's side, over his hip and down his thigh before coming slowly back up again. " _Everyone else is asleep. You could crawl in there and help him finish off._ "

"Since when did you care about this stuff?" Harry mutters without taking his gaze from Draco.

" _Just thinking about you,_ " he replies, cold lips brushing against Harry's ear, hand slipping forward so his fingers brush against the bulge at the front of Harry's pyjamas. Harry jerks away from him and Riddle smirks.

Draco jumps and swears when his bed curtains are ripped open. Before he can get more than a glimpse of dark hair and a pale face, the curtains are pulled shut again, but now Harry's climbing on top of him, lips crushing against Draco's in a heated kiss that Draco might question if he wasn't so turned on. Instead he just moans into the warm mouth as Harry's hands press against his bare chest, his touch gentle despite the insistent kiss, pyjama-clad hips grinding against Draco's own naked ones and eliciting a sharp gasp from him.

"I need you," Harry murmurs against his mouth, voice filled with so much desire Draco shudders, grabbing at Harry's hips and pulling them together again. "I need _you_."

"Yes," Draco moans breathily, then whimpers when Harry pulls away and sits up, but he just jerks his sleeping shirt over his head then he's back down again, skin against skin, his mouth on Draco's again, one elbow on the bed by Draco's head for support, other hand moving down until it reaches the base of Draco's cock. It stops there and Draco whines.

"Can I...?" Harry asks, his first sign of hesitancy.

"Yes!" Draco growls impatiently, thrusting against Harry's hand. Fingers wrap around him and he moans, eyes fluttering shut as Harry moves his hand, but he opens them again so he can look at Harry, staring into his mismatched eyes as Harry gets him off. It doesn't take long and Harry kisses him as he comes.

"Touch me," Harry whispers as Draco's recovering. "Please."

His head drops to Draco's shoulder as Draco slides his pyjamas over his hips, pushing them down just enough to get at Harry's cock and he presses a kiss to Harry's shoulder, his other hand rubbing down Harry's back and over his arse, fingers gripping the soft flesh. When he comes, it's with a shudder and a gasp.

"That was a pleasant surprise," Draco murmurs as Harry Wishes away their mess and pulls up his pyjamas again before lying fully against Draco, levitating the covers over them.

"I was watching you," Harry confesses with the barest hint of guilt, head resting on Draco's shoulders, hands moving slowly over his bare skin.

"If it makes you jump me like that, can you watch me more often? It was hot."

He feels Harry's mouth curve into a slight smile but he says nothing.

"You're blushing, aren't you?"

"No," Harry lies.

"You are. I know you. You're bright red right now."

"Shut up," Harry mumbles, smiling. Then: "I want to fuck you."

"Not right now, I hope," Draco says sleepily.

"Soonish."

"Sounds good. Just us?"

Harry nods, lightly kissing his collarbone. "Just us."

* * *

There's a moment of panic at breakfast on the first Saturday of May when the entire school—staff and students—suddenly find themselves sporting certain animal features. Half of them have sprouted wings while the other half have cats ears and a tail.

"I believe that's everyone, Sirius. You owe me ten Galleons."

Sirius glowers at James, lowering his hand from the cats ears quivering on top of his head. "You made me look like a cat?"

James shrugs, a smug grin on his face and a pair of feathered black wings tucked neatly against his body. "Should have had coffee or tea instead of juice."

"Gentlemen."

Both marauders look at Dumbledore, whose own wings are as white as his beard and getting in McGonagall's way.

"Might I ask how long these new additions will last?"

"About twelve hours," James tells him.

"James Potter, you are a teacher!" McGonagall scolds, tail flicking in annoyance. "You're supposed to set an example to these children."

"I am setting an example—just because the worlds a bit shitty doesn't mean they shouldn't get the chance to spread their wings and have a little fun."

McGonagall looks like she wants to argue but Dumbledore raises his wand and lets off a loud _BANG!_ to draw everyone's attention.

"In the interests of safety, I am forbidding flying inside the castle." There's numerous cries of objections and disappointment but Dumbledore doesn't back down. "Flying outside is permitted, but only under the supervision of a professor. I would ask that everyone please consider your new space requirements, and be cautious of others' wings and tails. Damage to anyone's new body parts will be harmful and dangerous, and anyone who does purposely cause harm will be punished with the same severity as any other bodily harm would be."

* * *

"I quite like it actually," Hermione says to Harry as they sit in the Quidditch stands with a number of other students, watching those with wings practice flying in small groups. She has a bushy brown tail currently tucked neatly against her and out of the way. Harry's own sleek black one is flicking around behind him as he tries to keep it from Riddle, who quickly discovers that putting his cold hands on Harry's new appendage is a sure way to irritate him.

"It's bloody annoying," Harry grumbles, watching Draco swoop and dive, looking as delighted to fly with wings as he is with a broom. Neville, on the other hand, is on the ground looking thoroughly unhappy and struggling just to keep his wings tucked against him and away from anyone else.

"It's just a bit of fun," Hermione counters with a smile. "You look quite adorable with cat ears."

Harry huffs.

He doesn't mind it so much later that afternoon when he's curled on Draco's lap, securely wrapped in a cocoon of platinum blond feathers, tail tucked against his body and out of Riddle's reach. They sit by the lake and Harry's warm, comfortable, and perfectly content to remain there if only—

"Stop playing with my ears."

"But they're so fluffy," Draco says with a grin as said ears twitch in annoyance. "Can you hear with them?"

"No, it's all going through my normal ears, but if you seriously don't stop playing with them I'm going to pull out one of your feathers."

"That's mean," Draco pouts, but drops his hand to Harry's lap instead.

Three second years end up with their tails tangled together, a couple of seventh years get in a duel that results in feathers being singed and shed, a fourth year breaks the no-flying-inside rule and ends up breaking their wing bones, more than a few people get their tails trod on, and at the end of the day the staff and a good portion of the students are thoroughly glad when the effects eventually wear off, only a few being disappointed to get back to normal.

* * *

"Ready?"

"God, yes," Draco breathes, hands clenching on Harry's arms as he slides into him, letting out a shuddering moan that turns to weak chuckles when he noticed the look of wonderment on Harry's face. "Feel good?"

Harry just nods, slowly pulling back and thrusting forward again. Draco groans.

"Harder."

"Harder?"

Draco nods. Harry looks unsure but obliges him then looks horrified when Draco gasps sharply.

"I'm fine!" he says quickly. "It's good, Harry."

"I don't want to hurt you."

"You're not," he promises, stroking his face. "You're not. Keep going."

* * *

" _Mine. Mine, mine, mine_."

"What are you saying?"

"That you're mine. All mine."

"Then say it in English so I can hear."

"You're mine, Draco. All mine, no one else's."

* * *

"Was that okay?"

"Better than okay. Way, way better than okay. I like you being possessive."

"I'm yours too, right?"

"Absolutely."

"I didn't hurt you?" Harry asks him nervously.

"No, Harry," he assures him with a smile. "You didn't hurt me. Did you enjoy it?"

"Yeah."

"You don't sound so sure."

"I did, I just... I don't know. I thought I'd enjoy it more, I guess," he says, laying his head on Draco's shoulder as fingers start combing through his hair. "Everyone makes out like it's so great, but... I prefer other stuff, I think."

"Nothing wrong with that. You prefer me fucking you?"

"And watching."

"Watching just me, or...?"

"And others."

"Even though I'm yours and you said you weren't interested in watching me and Lyle fuck anymore?"

"You are mine. Fucking him doesn't change that, even if we did it again. You're still mine and I'm still yours."

"Definitely like you being possessive," Draco says with a smile.

When they're getting dressed to return to Slytherin—they both agree it's best not to push their luck about getting caught out of bed after curfew, no matter how much they'd prefer to stay in the Room of Requirement all night—Draco clears his throat. "Can I ask you something? Does your voice talk to you during sex?"

"No," Harry says with a glimpse at Riddle, stood by the door looking bored. "He stays quiet. I think it bothers him, but he knows I'm going to do it anyway so he just stays out of it."

"Him? It's a 'him' now?"

Harry winces. "Um... yeah?"

Draco pulls on his shoes, looking worried. "Isn't that sort of bad, giving it a personality like that? Are you sure you shouldn't see someone about it?"

"It's fine, Draco," Harry says after a glance at Riddle, whose eyes narrow dangerously at the suggestion and the flicker of thought Harry has at the idea of mentioning that it's more than just a voice now. "Really."

* * *

" _He doesn't need to know about me. No one needs to know about me._ "

Harry thinks he shouldn't be this scared of a hallucination. He thinks he should do something but Riddle's bigger and stronger than him, cold and heavy as he pins Harry to the bed. Telling himself that it's just a hallucination doesn't make the tight hands around his wrists feel any less real, doesn't make the body on his hips any easier to fight off, doesn't make the face so close to his own any less terrifying in all its beauty.

" _I didn't tell him._ "

" _Make sure you don't. If you do, I might have to join in the next time you bed him, get my own hands on that beautiful body of his, see if he feels me._ "

" _Don't you—_ "

Riddle kisses him. It's hard and fast, over before Harry even realises what's happened, but it does what Riddle wants and shuts him up.

" _Keep your pretty little mouth shut, Harry, and you won't have to worry about your precious Draco._ "

* * *

"I don't suppose there's any chance you've reconsidered the possibility of having another go with me, have you?"

"Shouldn't you be studying for your OWLs?" Draco asks Tyler as he stands over Draco and Harry, who are lounging by the lake, Harry leant against Draco with a book in his lap while Draco leans against a tree. "They're in two weeks."

"Guy's gotta have a break sometime," Tyler says, with a shrug, hands in his pockets. "Three-way seems like a good way to go about it."

"Do you want to?" Harry asks Draco without looking up from his book.

"I thought you didn't. What happened to too much studying?"

"After the exams."

"Works for me," Tyler says.

"You want to?" Draco asks Harry, who shrugs.

"Sure."

"Alright," Draco agrees. "After exams then."

Tyler grins. "Yes!"

* * *

Harry doesn't get to stop classes like the rest of the NEWT students, although he is allowed to take off the day before his History of Magic exam. The Ancient Runes is Monday of the second week, so he spends Saturday and Sunday studying for that. It's hard and although he's sure he passes it, he's not so confident he's managed to get an O grade. He gets the following Thursday off, which he spends in the library studying for the History of Magic that's the following afternoon—the last exam for everyone.

* * *

"Morning, Albus."

Dumbledore frowns heavily at the man sat in his office as he moves around his desk to take a seat in his chair, resting his elbows on the chair arms and steepling his fingers as he looks at the Assistant.

"You shouldn't be here."

"Breaking into your office is the smallest crime I've committed today."

"It's half past six."

"Bloody awful, isn't it?"

"Have you come to turn on me?"

The Assistant looks surprised, then smiles. "It was the crime thing, wasn't it? No, I've not come to turn on you, and whatever terrible thing you think I've done, I haven't. This morning, at least. Chances are I've done it some other time."

"Then might I enquire as to precisely what crime you have committed?"

"Aside from crawling out of bed ridiculously early? I've been searching your drawers, cabinets, chests, and every other personal storage location you have."

Dumbledore raises an eyebrow. "I'm sure it would have been a great deal easier simply to ask me about whatever it is you happen to be searching for."

"Debatable, but given that the item in question was stolen from me in the first place, I felt justified in skipping the polite and legal route."

"What on earth do you think I might have stolen from you?"

"Oh, I don't think you stole it from me. In fact, I know who did steal it from me on account of the fact that he's the only one who could, but I felt it might have ended up in your possession. You see, the object in question happened to be locked in a... vault... that only opens with the application of a specific design, drawn in my blood. Now I know I didn't take it from the vault, and I highly doubt Harry, James, Lucius, and Narcissa suddenly joined together to combine their blood and break into my vault, which leads me to conclude that Harry's been doing his pesky little teleportation magic."

"I see," Dumbledore says slowly. "And you believe that whatever Harry took from you, he then passed it on to me."

"Given that the object contained a portion of Lord Voldemort's soul, yeah, I reckon he probably did."

Dumbledore considers him for several long moments. The Assistant sits silently, perfectly relaxed, fingers linked behind his head, one foot resting on his other knee and jiggling slightly.

"You were in possession of Ravenclaw's diadem," Dumbledore says eventually.

"Bingo, we have a winner. Have you destroyed it?"

"Harry did."

"Oh good," the Assistant says cheerfully. "You remembered my little point about keeping it in his bloodline then."

"I did, however I am not so sure that allowing him to continue doing so is entirely safe."

"Oh?"

"He responded unfavourably to the diadem."

"Seized?"

"Yes."

"Hmm. Well, they've got to be destroyed. Unless of course you don't want to continue trying to defeat Voldemort. I'll be honest and say it wouldn't bother me a whole lot; I don't really expect it to break my time loop, but if you are giving up I'd like to know now so I can quit the spying gig and go do something a little more fun for the next ten and a half months."

"That's all you have left?"

"Yup. May first, I go poof! Get to start all over again. I'm thinking I'll be a good guy this time, might even help raise the kid, be an uncle or something, make sure he has a decent childhood."

"I'm sure he'd like that. So. Is the diadem all you came for?"

The Assistant lowers his hands and taps his fingers against his thigh. "No," he admits. "I came to tell you something."

"Is it something you'd like to tell me over breakfast?"

"Ohh, there's a good idea. Yes, please."

Dumbledore summons a house elf and breakfast trays soon decorate Dumbledore's desk.

"I don't know what you know about time loops, but do you know what a Key Point is?" the Assistant asks as he butters a croissant while Dumbledore pours them both tea.

"A fixed event, something that always occurs regardless of what else might change. It's often vital to ending the loop."

"Yeah, so I've heard. Unfortunately I've got a few of them, so it's a little harder, but anyway... today's one of them."

"An entire day?" Dumbledore asks, handing him a cup and lifting his own to sip at it.

"No, a certain event that always happens today."

"What event might that be?"

"I don't like getting that specific, but you should stay in the castle today."

Dumbledore slowly lowers his cup back to the saucer. "Is that to ensure the event, or an attempt to avert it?"

"Neither. It'll happen in either case, but staying in the castle will help reduce collateral damage."

Dumbledore's sets his tea down on the desk. "Are my students in danger?"

The Assistant doesn't even think about it before shaking his head. "I'm confident that, given how the timeline has progressed and given the attitudes of the persons involved with the event, the students are in no danger. In fact, they're rather safer than they are in other timelines during this event."

"Do you know what I had planned for the day?" Dumbledore asks as the Assistant bites into his croissant.

The Assistant nods, chews and swallows, then answers, "There's no point going anyway. The Horcrux in the cave is fake. Regulus Black switched it out in early seventy-nine."

"Ah."

"Slytherin's locket. It should still be in the Black family home, assuming Mundungus hasn't got his sticky fingers on it. You might find Kreacher has it stashed away somewhere."

"Kreacher was set free several years ago and the locket is destroyed."

The Assistant raises an eyebrow. "I'll bite; how'd you find it? The Black family home isn't somewhere your counterparts normally look."

"Harry stole that one too. He took it from the Black Family home some time ago and has kept it in his Gringotts vault since."

The Assistant's brow furrows. "He just took it and decided to shove it in his vault? Weird. It still there?"

"No, he destroyed that too after I asked him to retrieve it during a trip to London."

"Seized with that one?"

"He claims not to have. He took it upon himself to destroy it without supervision," Dumbledore explains.

"Kids, eh? Still, it's another one down."

Dumbledore rests his elbows on his desk, link his fingers, and rests his chin on his hands, peering over his glasses at the Assistant. "And the others? Are you in possession of those?"

"Just the ring now. Hufflepuff's cup is sitting in Bellatrix Lestrange's Gringotts vault. That and Nagini are the hardest to get to."

"Understandably. Do you intend to let me—or Harry, if you prefer—have them?" Dumbledore asks him. "Our relationship has grown to a point of trust and I know everything now."

"Tomorrow," the Assistant tells him, finishing his croissant. "I need to focus on today's Key Point."

Dumbledore nods. "Tomorrow then. And..." He looks over his glasses at the other man without his usual twinkle. "The last Horcrux?"

"Technically, I'm not exactly in possession of that," the Assistant tells him, "though one could say that I am."

"Then my suspicions are correct."

"Yes."

Dumbledore sighs, leaning back in his seat and closing his eyes, suddenly looking ten years older. "I had hoped I was wrong."

"Your suspicions on what will happen if Voldemort tries to kill him at the right time are correct as well."

Dumbledore looks at him. "If I asked—"

"Yes."

Dumbledore raises an eyebrow. The Assistant hold up his hand, thumb and forefinger curled against his palm as he wriggles his other three fingers.

"Harry's one of the most important people to me, remember? I'll make sure he knows what needs to be done and that he succeeds."

Dumbledore frowns at the man across from him as the Assistant lowers his hand. "You claim to care so much for Harry, yet you've done a lot to work against him this timeline. If you truly—"

The Assistant surges to his feet, expression suddenly stern and dangerous, reminding Dumbledore very strongly that despite his usually blasé attitude the Assistant wields the power to kill him where he stands with less effort than it takes Dumbledore to get out of bed in the morning.

"Do not presume to tell me how I feel," he says coldly, "or the correct way to express my feelings. You cannot even begin to comprehend what it does to a person to see people they know die and live and change and never get past a certain time. You have no idea what it's like for me to interact with you people and you never will, Albus. Harry is important to me; I will work to ensure he survives as long as possible and that the Dark Lord dies. The rest is not your concern."


	85. Chapter 85

" _Friday the thirteenth._ "

It's the first thing Harry hears, whispered in his ear by Riddle's cold, hissing voice. He lies behind him, leg slung over Harry's, his hand under Harry's shirt and pressed flat against his chest, right over his heart.

" _Bad luck, Friday the thirteenth. But bad luck for whom?_ "

He chuckles softly and Harry feels his lips brush against his ear, as cold as every other part of him.

" _We both know the answer to that, don't we?_ "

Harry doesn't eat much at breakfast. When Draco asks if it's nerves over the exam, he nods and says nothing. He keeps his magical eye on the staff table and Dumbledore, who's drinking tea and chatting amicably with Professor McGonagall. The magical roof over their heads reflects a bright, sunny sky outside.

"Good day for end of exams," he hears Cid say a little further down the table. "We can relax outside afterwards."

Harry gets the morning to study more. He gets a note at lunch from Dumbledore arranging one of their lessons for the following evening and he has to get up and leave quickly to shut himself in a toilet cubicle and lean his forehead against the door.

"How am I meant to kill him?"

He feels Riddle's hands slide around his waist, hugging him from behind in a gesture that, from Draco, would be intimate and comforting, but from Riddle is just unwanted and restrictive.

" _It's not like you don't want to._ "

" _I don't want to become a wanted criminal._ "

" _He'll die even if you don't kill him. The Assistant said as much and if you don't do it, our dear lord and master may very well take it as a disobedience regardless of how the old man does dies, and then—_ "

" _I'll lose Sirius and James._ "

" _Precisely. Whatever he has to tell you at that lesson tomorrow, you're never going to learn it, so you might as well get on with the job you've been given._ "

" _Then what?_ " he asks morosely. " _What do I do when Dumbledore's dead and I have to flee?_ "

Before Riddle can answer, Cid's voice comes from outside the cubicle. "Harry? That you in there?"

"Yeah. Sorry, you waiting?"

"No, I'm just really hoping that for some weird reason you've got a snake in there with you."

Harry frowns, shrugging Riddle off and unlocking the door, opening it and stepping out to see Cid stood at one of the urinals.

"Why would I have a snake in the bathroom with me?"

"It's either that or you were talking to your dick in Parseltongue and that's just fucking weird."

Harry flushes. "I was talking to myself but not to my... and even if I was, having a snake in the toilet with me is weirder than that."

"No it's not," Cid counters, shaking himself off and zipping up. "Because the snake could have just slithered in while you're sat on the crapper, but talking to your dick... that's weird even in English. It's just more weird in Parseltongue. Do you always talk to yourself in Parseltongue?"

"Stops people knowing what I'm saying."

"Good point."

* * *

Harry enjoys the exam. He doesn't have to think about Dumbledore, Voldemort, or murder—at least not that committed by himself. He gives all his attention to the questions on the exam, writing as fast as he can to put in as much as he can, letting his mind focus entirely on historical dates and people and events.

Afterwards, he seeks out the Slytherin fifth years relaxing by the lake.

"Tyler, can I have a quick word?"

"Sure."

He follows him a short distance away from the group, just far enough they won't be overheard.

"Tonight, after dinner."

Tyler looks confused for a moment, then, "Oh! You mean the threesome, right?"

"Yeah."

"Cool. So what, like half six? Seven?"

"Seven."

"Sweet. See you then."

Harry spends the rest of the time before dinner with Hermione and Neville, walking around the lake and talking about inconsequential things while trying to ignore the knot in his stomach over how much they're going to hate him by tomorrow.

After dinner, Harry and Draco go up to the Room of Requirement as soon as they finish eating.

"Are you alright?" Draco asks as Harry pulls him in by the hand.

"I'm fine."

"Sure? You've been kind of... off all day. Do you definitely want to do this?"

Harry nods, pulling him over to the bed and sitting on it, looking up at Draco. "I definitely want to do this. We'll even lock the door this time so we don't get walked in on."

Draco chuckles. "Yeah, that's a good idea."

They're topless and in the middle of a heated make-out session when Tyler arrives, knocking on the locked down. Harry spares a thought to Wish his and Draco's splinching scars invisible along with the Dark Mark he keeps constantly hidden, and unlocks the door with merely a thought. Tyler pauses when he gets inside, letting the door swing shut behind him as he watches the two of them, Harry in Draco's lap, hands tangled in Draco's hair while Draco's hands roam over Harry's body.

"I get why you like watching," he says appreciatively after a few minutes and starts stripping off his own clothes. "So is this going to be a threesome-threesome this time or are you watching again?"

"Just watching," Harry says even as he grinds his hips against Draco's. "Make sure you lock the door."

"You need to eat more, Harry," Tyler comments as he flicks the lock, finishes undressing, and makes his way over. "You're really skinny."

"I'm fine," Harry counters. Tyler shrugs and reaches out to touch him only for Draco's hand to snap out and grab his wrist. He looks around Harry with a mild glare.

"No touching him."

"Possessive much?"

"Yes."

Harry looks pleased. Tyler just shakes his head with a slight smile and pulls his hand back, climbing on the bed and positioning himself behind Draco instead. "I assume I can touch you?"

"You can," Harry answers, watching Tyler place his hands on Draco's shoulders and slowly trail them down his arms. Harry gives Draco one last kiss before climbing off his lap and moving over to the chair waiting beside the bed, never once taking his gaze from the two boys.

Once again Tyler falls asleep almost as soon as Draco's done with him. Harry leaves his chair to crawl over Draco.

"I want you to fuck me," Harry says quietly.

"Now?"

"When you're ready."

"Are you going to send him away first? I want you all to myself."

Harry smiles. "Tell me when you're ready and I'll wake him up."

"You guys suck," Tyler grumbles, apparently not as asleep as they thought. "Here was me hoping to spy on you."

"Perv," Draco says, and Tyler opens one eye to look at him.

"You just fucked me while your boyfriend watched. If I'm a perv, so are the two of you."

"He does have a point," Harry says.

Draco scowls. "Go to sleep, Lyle."

"No point if you're going to throw me out in a bit. Might as well leave now."

"You can rest a while first," Harry counters. "Draco's not ready to go again yet."

"It's fine," Tyler says dismissively, getting up and going to where his clothes are piled. "I'll leave you two lovebirds alone. Besides, Vicky broke up with Theo and she was hinting at wanting some no strings attached fun so I'm going to see if she's still up for that."

"You just had sex and now you're going for more?" Harry asks with a touch of incredulity.

"So's he and you're asking him for more," Tyler points out. "Anyway, this was about getting mine. Hooking up with Vicky is going to be all about her. Seriously, if you've never pleased a girl before, try it. It's satisfying."

"If you don't want to—" Harry begins when Tyler's left, but Draco cuts him off with a kiss.

"I do want to. Just give me half an hour and I'll be good to go."

Harry keeps his eyes open and fixed on Draco's face when they fuck, taking in every detail—the specks of blue in his grey eyes, the way his eyelashes sit, the curve of his eyebrows, the line of his jaw, the stroke of his cheekbones, every tiny blemish in his pale skin—memorising it all because there's a tiny part of him that's terrified he's never going to see him again.

"I wish we could stay here like this forever," Harry murmurs against his throat afterwards, the two of them pressed together, covers drawn over them.

"We could stay the night," Draco suggests. "We can get away with it for one night at least."

Harry wishes he could. He'd like nothing more than to spend all night in Draco's arms, but he knows he can't, no matter how tempting.

The next hour passes painfully fast. Harry's hands shake as he dresses and he tries not to let Draco notice. When they leave the room, he slips his hand into Draco's and holds it until they reach the fourth floor, where he stops them and pulls Draco into a long, deep kiss.

"What's wrong?" Draco asks when they break apart. "Something is. Tell me."

Harry looks around and tugs him into a nearby classroom, shutting the door behind them and pulling Draco into a hug, pressing his face to the other boy's shoulder and feeling arms wrap around him in return.

"I can't come back to Slytherin."

"Why not?"

"I have to do something. Something bad."

Draco tries to pull back but Harry clings to him, holding him in place. "What is it?"

"You'll find out when it's done, but I have to leave Hogwarts afterwards."

Draco jerks away, forcing some distance between them so he can take Harry's face in hand and lift it to look at him. "Harry, what are you doing? What's going on?"

Harry hesitates, wondering if he should tell him or not, but his desire to put it off wins out. "I have to kill Dumbledore."

"Are you serious?"

Harry nods. "I have to, and it has to be today."

"Why today? Can't it wait until the end of the school year at least so you can stay until then?"

Harry wonders if he should be concerned at Draco's easy acceptance of his task, but doesn't have time to worry about it. "No, it has to be today or Sirius and James will die."

Draco rests his forehead against Harry's, closing his eyes. "Why will you have to leave? No one will know it was you if you don't want them to. Frame someone."

"I can't. He said I have to make sure everyone knows it's me. I have to go, Draco."

Draco kisses him again, firmly at first then easing it to a soft press of lips on lips before drawing back and opening his eyes. "If you need somewhere to hide from the authorities, you can stay in my bedroom."

Harry smiles wanly. "Thanks. Go back to Slytherin. Stay there, no matter what."

Draco looks like he's going to say something to argue, but he doesn't, just nods, kisses him one last time, and walks away.

* * *

"Hey, kid, what's up?"

Harry shrugs, stepping into the room and approaching the sofa where Sirius and James play exploding snap. "I was passing, thought I'd pop in and say hi."

"Alright," Sirius says, shooting him a vaguely amused glance.

"How was your exam?" James asks him.

"Good. Pretty sure I aced it."

"Got a few more free periods for the last two weeks then."

Harry swallows thickly but nods. "Yeah. I should probably go, it's nearly curfew."

"Come by tomorrow," Sirius suggests. "We can have lunch together."

"Sounds good. I love you."

They pause in the middle of their game and the cards blow up. James swears. Sirius looks at Harry with his brow furrowed slightly.

"You alright?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"Random decelerations of love—not exactly normal behaviour."

Harry shrugs and forces a wry smile. "Just wanted to tell you."

"Alright. Well. Love you too, kid. Now get back to Slytherin before we have to put you in detention for breaking curfew."

Harry nods and turns away before, swallowing the lump in his throat and hurrying out before he completely loses his composure.

The Entrance Hall is empty when he reaches it but he does a quick sweep with his magical eye before pushing the Great Hall door open and moving into the room, which seems so much larger when it's empty, a sensation not helped by the star spattered sky overhead. His footsteps seem intolerably loud as he moves up past the Slytherin table to the staff one. He reaches it and turns to face the room, standing with the staff table behind him while Riddle climbs over the table and settles himself imperiously in Dumbledore's chair.

* * *

" _Will the Headmaster, the Heads of Houses, and the Head Boy and Girl please go to the Great Hall immediately. All other students are to return to their dormitories. All other staff are to remain in their quarters._ "

McGonagall rises from her desk the moment she hears her own voice echoing through the castle, drawing her wand and going to the door. The fire flares behind her and she turns to see Dumbledore's head sticking out the flames, a frown on his face.

"Minerva, what's this about?"

"That wasn't me, Albus," she tells him.

"I'm coming through."

Moments later Dumbledore's stepping out of the fire, drawing his own wand and sending off a Patronus message to the Aurors guarding the gates.

"What should we do?" McGonagall asks.

"Go to the Great Hall. Aurora, Ponoma, and Filius will be there and we cannot leave them unawares. Come, quickly."

The reach the Entrance at the same moment Flitwick does, Head Girl Melissa Parker trotting along behind him. Aurors Tonks and Shacklebolt are already there.

"What's going on, Headmaster?" Flitwick asks.

"Minerva didn't make that announcement," Dumbledore says gravely. "Where's—ah, Aurora. Did you see Ponoma on your way?"

Professor Sinistra shakes her head. "Her rooms are closest; she may already be inside. What's this about?"

"We don't know. Miss Parker, do you know where Mr Sparrow is?"

Melissa shakes her head. "Slytherin is closer than Ravenclaw, though, Professor. He may already be inside with Professor Sprout. Is something wrong?"

"Yes, I'm afraid there is. I need you to go to each of the houses and ask the prefects to keep all the students inside. It's past curfew for everyone anyway, but make sure. Try not to appear distressed; we don't want to cause undue panic. If you see Mr Sparrow, have him do the same. Then please go to James and Sirius' rooms—fourth floor, just around the corner from their office—and ask them to come down here."

"Yes, professor," she says with a nod before hurrying away.

"Kingsley, Aurora, stay here and keep guard. Send in James and Sirius when they get here. Minerva, Tonks, Filius, come with me."

Harry's still stands in front of the staff table when the three teachers and one Auror come in. Professor Sprout stands by the Hufflepuff table looking confused and worried, and Logan Sparrow hovers near the door, a scowl on his face to cover his slight fear.

"Mr Evans, what are you doing here?" McGonagall scolds, making to move towards him only for Dumbledore to grab her arm and shake his head sharply. "What... Albus?"

"Voice alteration is a difficult bit of spellwork, Minerva."

"I'm aware of that, Albus," McGonagall says impatiently. "I don't see what that has to do with Harry."

"I made the announcement, professor," Harry says quietly.

"You? Why?"

"Because I needed you here. I needed him here. I'm also going to need—" he makes a Wish and four wands appear on the table behind him to join the two already there "—your wands. Can you get Kingsley and Professor Sinistra to come in please? They don't need to stand guard, it's not necessary. Where did you send Melissa Parker?"

"Back to Ravenclaw," Dumbledore answers without taking his eyes from Harry. "Mr Sparrow, please go out and ask Auror Shacklebolt and Professor Sinistra to come in here, then return to Slytherin."

Logan nods and quickly slips out. Dumbledore slowly moves across the hall and then up the space between the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw tables. Tonks goes all the way to the Gryffindor one and does the same while McGonagall moves up along the Slytherin one. Flitwick goes to stand with Sprout.

"You can stop now," Harry says. McGonagall and Dumbledore instantly stop. Tonks pauses, edges forward, then notices Dumbledore shake his head sharply and stops again. The door opens and Kingsley and Sinistra come in, their wands joining the ones on the table the moment they're inside.

"What's this about, Harry?" Dumbledore asks gently. "Surely all this drama isn't necessary."

"I need witnesses or I would have just come to your office," Harry tells him.

"Witnesses for what?"

"I have to kill you."

Sprout gasps. Flitwick squeaks. Sinistra utters small scream. Tonks gapes. Shacklebolt frowns. McGonagall stares. Dumbledore doesn't even blink.

"Ah," he says.

"I mean it," Harry tells him. "If I don't, it'll happen anyway."

"I know," Dumbledore says calmly. "However—"

The door opens and Sirius and James step inside, wands drawn and pointed. Sirius' drops slightly when he sees Harry and he frowns, moving further into the room, eyes flicking over the occupants. "What's going on here? Why are you all ambushing my godson?"

"Us?!" Tonks cries, outraged. "He's the one that nicked all our wands and is saying some rubbish about killing Dumbledore!"

Sirius looks sharply at Harry, who scowls at Tonks then looks apologetically at Sirius. "You should have stayed in your rooms. I told everyone else to stay in their rooms."

"You?" James says with a frown. "But McGonagall..."

"I had to sound like her or no one would have listened. Please, just go back to your rooms."

"No," Sirius says. "What's this about killing Dumbledore? Tell me it's bullshit, kid."

Harry says nothing. Sirius stalks up between the Slytherin and Ravenclaw tables, but halfway up he slams into an invisible wall, staggering back, his wand disappearing along with James' to join the others. "What the... Harry, let me come up there!"

"No, you can't stop me, Sirius. I have to do this."

"The hell you do!"

"Your godfather's right, Harry," Dumbledore says gently. "Whatever may or may not be supposed to happen today, you do not have to kill me."

"Yes I do!" Harry shouts. "Your life is not worth more than Sirius', or James', not to me!"

"Hang on, what?" Tonks says, confused. Almost everyone else looks similarly baffled, only Sirius and Dumbledore don't look confused by Harry's words.

Dumbledore's expression doesn't change, but his gaze hardens slightly. "Harry, did the Assistant give you another message from Voldemort?"

"What? No. The Assistant's a traitor, you know that. He doesn't work for him anymore."

"Then how did Voldemort get to you? All post in and out of school is being monitored."

"Post? The Dark Lord doesn't send his orders by _post_. He told me to do this months ago."

Tonks, Sinistra, Flitwick, and Sprout look even more confused now. Understanding dawns on Kingsley's face and James is working it out.

"You Know Who?" McGonagall scoffs, still not seeing it. "Why on earth would he be giving—"

"You're a Death Eater?!" James interrupts loudly, expression torn between anger and disbelief.

"Prongs," Sirius says warningly. James glances at him, back at Harry, then to Sirius again.

"You knew. You knew, didn't you? Why didn't you fucking tell me?!"

"Because I knew it'd turn you against him and that's the last thing he needs right now!" Sirius yells back. James looks as if he's been slapped.

"Turn against him?" he repeats disbelievingly. "That's my step-son! I had to leave him for near enough fifteen years, I'm not turning on him now!"

"Uh... step-son?" Tonks says. "Did I miss something?"

"Lily had an affair," James says without looking at her. "I'm not Harry's biological father. But I'm still family, Harry. I still—"

"Don't!" Harry shouts. "Don't, okay? Just... I'm sorry, James. I am. I'm sorry, everyone, but I have to do this and he said everyone has to know it's me or I wouldn't make you watch."

"Harry, Dumbledore's more important than me or James," Sirius says imploringly.

"No he's not!" Harry yells. "Not to me!"

"You're not the only person this affects!" Sirius shouts back. "You can't kill Dumbledore. Let James and I di-"

"NO!"

The windows shatter, making everyone but Dumbledore and Harry jump, a few of them shrieking in surprise. Harry stands with hands clenched at his sides, breathing hard.

"No. I made my choice. I made it last summer and I've stuck by it even when it made me sick and I hated myself, because I love you and I can't lose you. Everyone said I should do what I had to. You told me, Dad told me, Riddle told me. So that's what I'm doing. I'm doing what I'm told so you don't die. I know you didn't want to know what the Dark Lord asked me to do and I'm sorry, but Dumbledore's not the first person I've killed and he won't be the last. I'm doing this and none of you will stop me."

" _Riddle_?" Sirius says. "Tom Riddle? Are you possessed again?"

"No. I'm not possessed, I'm just fucking crazy."

"Hang on," James says. "What do you mean possessed _again?_ "

"It doesn't matter!" Harry cries. "Just stop talking and let me get on with it!"

"Harry, I'm going to die anyway," Dumbledore says placatingly. "I'll be dead before midnight. You don't need to do it."

"What are you talking about, Albus?" McGonagall asks sharply, now sat on the Slytherin bench, the shock of what she's hearing clearly too much.

"Key Points," Dumbledore answers evasively without looking at her. "Harry, there's little more than two hours until midnight. Just wait that long and you needn't have any culpability."

"I need culpability, Dumbledore. He told me to kill you and make sure everyone knew it was me. If I let you die some other way, he can twist it into a sign of disloyalty and he'll kill Sirius. It has to be me."

"You'll go to Azkaban for life if you do," Kinsgley says, speaking for the first time. His expression is unreadable.

"I've already said he's not my first kill, I'm going to Azkaban anyway. It's too late for me. There's no turning back. Now sit down and shut up."

Everyone but Dumbledore suddenly finds themselves sitting down, lips sealed shut. Dumbledore looks around, frowning.

"That's unnecessary, Harry. Let them go."

"When I'm done. Now, I don't want to do this. I mean, I do because you've done some pretty shit things to me, but I do kind of respect your position, but I have to, so I'm sorry, I am. And look, if you want, you can choose how."

Dumbledore raises his eyebrows. "You would have me choose the method of my execution?"

"I said if you want. If you don't, I'm just going to snap your neck. Quick, easy, done. But if you want the Killing Curse or something else... whatever. I don't know. Stop looking at me like that."

"No," Dumbledore says softly. "In my last moments, I feel it's my right to express the sympathy and pity I feel for my killer. I understand your position, Harry."

"Really? You've been forced to choose between torture and murder or having your godfather die? He _cares_ about me. He _loves_ me. He took me in when he didn't even know me and he's the only adult in my life that's never really failed me."

" _He went after revenge instead of looking after you as a baby,_ " Riddle hisses, and Harry whirls.

"You shut up!"

"Who are you talking to?" Dumbledore asks with mild curiosity.

"Riddle," Harry says, turning to face him. "My hallucination. The Dark Lord likes to torture us when he thinks we've done wrong and I was already crazy—I had a voice in my head, see—and then one day it was too many crucios and I cracked and now I see Riddle everywhere I go. So what's it going to be, Dumbledore. Broken neck?"

"You're certain you wish to do this?"

"I have to."

"Then, I think, a broken neck will suffice. And Harry? I am sincerely sorry."

"For what?"

"For every wrong I have committed against you."

"I'm sorry too, sir."

The crack echoes through the hall and Dumbledore's body hits the ground with a soft thud.


	86. Chapter 86

Snape isn't superstitious. There's no logic in superstition and he is a logical man. That said, he has noticed that a disproportionate number of less than pleasant things have happened on Friday the thirteenth in his life, but that's nothing more than coincidence. He refuses to give in to something as stupid and narrow minded as superstition. Except that one time in 1983 when he had a particularly bad Friday, but even that wasn't superstition so much as semi-justified paranoia. He just thought that it was possible someone had hexed him to have bad luck on any Friday the thirteenth, but all his tests came up clean. So he thinks little of it when he wakes up on the morning of Friday the thirteenth of June.

His day passes unremarkably. His alarm wakes him mid-morning—he broke the habit of waking early surprisingly quickly—and he checks the Spicinaspectus Elixir he'd left to simmer overnight in the pewter cauldron and the Wolfsbane bubbling in the silver cauldron, then heads downstairs to make himself a coffee, which he drinks as he reads an article in _Pioneer Potions_. He spends the afternoon reading until he needs to add the last few ingredients to the Spicinaspectus and then collects it all in vials which he puts in a travel case, which then goes in a messenger bag. He gulps down a mouthful of Polyjuice, checks his reflection, takes the bag and Disapparates.

David Fuller is a greasy-haired, skeevy looking man with a stained brown leather jacket and a constant haze of cigarette smoke about him. He's the sort of man who makes mothers nervous and cops suspicious—perfectly justified reactions given that he's a drug dealer who deals anything he can get his smoke-stained hands on, Muggle or magical.

Snape doesn't particularly like Fuller, but he pays for the potions Snape brings and pays well, and Snape's used to dealing with people he doesn't like; he long ago accepted it as a fact of life. There are, after all, very few people he actually _does_ like.

Snape's not an idiot. He knows there's something wrong the moment he walks into Fuller's flat. Fuller's nervous and restless, doesn't have Snape's money ready like he normally does, and suggests Snape stay for a drink and a cigarette, something he's never done before nor shown any inclination to do. That last thing is what makes Snape realise he's in trouble, but by then it's too late. The door of the flat crashes open and half a dozen Aurors force their way inside. Snape's not really surprised to find Anti-Apparition Spells in place, but he tries anyway, then slowly lifts his hands and gets to his knees as the Aurors shout at him to do.

It quickly becomes clear after a few comments from Fuller that he sold Snape out as a supplier to get out of trouble himself. Snape, now sat on Fuller's ratty couch with his hands cuffed behind him and Fuller next to him, gives Fuller a death glare that even in his Polyjuiced form makes Fuller turn pale and edge away from him.

Snape flicks his eyes around the room, analysing the situation, trying to find a way out. His wand has been confiscated but sticks out the pocket of the nearest Auror. There are six in total, two guarding the door, two checking the rest of the flat, and two standing over Snape and Fuller. Snape recognises one them as a vaguely familiar face that he thinks he taught once and another—Travers, the one with his wand—as a Death Eater, which makes this entire situation a whole lot worse.

"What the hell is this?"

One of the Aurors who's searching the flat comes through from the bedroom with a gun in his hands, turning it over with a confused expression and absolutely no care at all.

"Be careful!" Fuller cries when the Auror points the gun in his direction.

"Answer the question, scumbag," Travers says. "What is that thing?"

"It's a gun, it's a Muggle weapon," Fuller says rapidly. "Please put it down."

"Oi, Waterstone!" the Auror with the gun calls, and one of the Aurors outside sticks her head through the door. "You're a Muggleborn. What do you know about guns?"

"They're dangerous," Waterstone says, stepping inside. "Don't do that!" she adds when the Auror peers down the barrel of the weapon. Waterstone hurries over to gingerly take the weapon from him. "They shoot bullets—little balls of metal—that embed in the body and kill you."

"They put metal in your body to kill you?" Travers says sceptically. "What, do you stick it in your mouth or something?"

"No—I mean, yes, you could. But see, the gun fires the bullets at really high speeds, like hundreds of miles per hour, and it just tears through your flesh. If it doesn't hit your vital organs or an artery then you can survive it, but if it does it'll kill you and sometimes pretty quick."

"Well it's not part of the drugs bust so just put it back. Kirby, Heathers, you finished searching the place?"

"Sir, this is an illegal weapon," Waterstone says as Kirby and Heathers nod. "We have to take it in as evidence."

"It's not magical, it's got nothing to do with us, Waterstone. We're a drug squad, not Muggle Crimes. Unless it can get you high, I'm not interested."

"Sir, I really think we should take it in."

Travers rolls his eyes. "You're filling in the paperwork and dealing with those tossers in the MugCrim Office, Waterstone.

"You two, get up," he adds to Snape and Fuller. "You're both under arrest for possession and distribution of illegal substances. Heathers, Kirby, start collecting this shit up; Banks, stay on the door; Waterstone, Everett, take Fuller back to the Ministry; I'll take this scumbag."

Travers grabs Snape by the arm and hauls him to his feet, waits until Waterstone and Everett have left with Fuller, then starts to shove Snape towards the door, only for Kirby to call for him.

"Hold up, boss, bring him here. Got something I don't recognise."

Travers jerks Snape back and turns him back towards the table. "Move it."

Kirby holds up a vial of sunshine yellow potion. "What is this?"

"No idea," Snape says, and Travers kicks the back of his knee, driving him to the floor.

"I'm not in the mood for dealing with smart-arses, scumbag. What's in the—"

"Boss, his face!" Heathers interrupts.

Travers grabs Snape's hair—which is going from grey to black and lengthening—and jerks his head back. "You're under a Polyjuice, ain't you?" he sneers as Snape's face begins to morph. "Let's see who you really are."

"Merlin!"

"That's Severus Snape!"

Travers grabs Snape's arm and hauls him to his feet again, staring at him in disbelief, then spins him around and jerks up his left sleeve, looking for the Dark Mark. Snape's cuffed hands brush against the pocket in which his and Fuller's wands are stashed and Snape grabs them both.

" _Relashio!_ "

He's not got the wands held properly but with both it's enough and the cuffs click. He snaps his head back, slamming it into Travers' nose and sending the Auror stumbling back. Heathers and Kirby go for their own wands—stowed when they thought the danger was passed—but Snape's already spinning, getting his wand properly gripped and silently casting two rapid stunning spells. One hits Kirby and he drops to the floor; the other just misses Heathers, who throws a Body Bind Curse. Snape ducks and the curse flies over his head to slam into Banks, who just stepped in to see what all the commotion is.

" _Stupefy!_ "

" _Expelliarmus!_ "

The stunner hits Heathers just as Snape and Fuller's wands jump from Snape's hands and Travers snatches them from the air then fixes his own wand on Snape.

"The Dark Lord is going to be really unhappy to see you," Travers says in a whisper, eyes flicking around to make sure Banks is out of earshot and Heathers and Kirby are definitely unconscious. "He thinks you're dead."

"I'd really like it to stay that way," Snape says, slowly shifting back. He knows Fuller keeps another gun down the sofa cushions; Snape might not know much about them, but he knows how to hold one and pull the trigger. He just needs to get to it.

"Does the brat know? Was he in on it?"

"He's got no idea," Snape lies. "He'd have sold me out if it meant keeping Black safe."

"He's your kid, I heard."

"I was a bad dad," Snape says, and lunges for the sofa. He sticks his hand between the cushions just as Travers yells a spell but the jet of light flies past his head. His fingers touch metal and he pulls out the gun, dodges another spell, points the weapon at Travers with both hands and pulls the trigger—and nothing happens.

Travers grins. "So much for being a dangerous weapons. Muggles can't even do that right. Put it down, Snape, and come quietly."

"And have a lethal accident when you take me into the Ministry? Or a detour to wherever the Dark Lord's holed up? I don't think so, Travers," he says, and throws the gun. Travers jerks his wand up, snarling a spell, and the gun flies off course to fling across the room away from him, but it's a distraction and he doesn't get time to get his wand on Snape again before the man slams into him, knocking him back against the table of potions. Several are knocked to the floor, vials smashing and potion splashing everywhere. Snape grabs Travers' wrist, twisting hard until the wands drop from his grip. Travers headbutts him, knocking him back, and tries to go for his fallen wand only for Snape to jerk a knee up and slam it into Travers' face then punch him hard when Travers' head jerks back. He crouches, snatching up his own wand and turning on Travers, flinging a silent Stunning Spell that arrests Travers in the middle of getting up.

"Hey, boss, what's the hold—oi! _Petrificus Totalus! Finite Incantatem!_ "

Snape whirls, flinging out his wand and getting a shield up just in time to stop the curse. He throws one back but it passes harmlessly through the door as Waterstone moves aside, pressing herself to the wall outside the door, while the newly freed Banks scrambles out the way and mirrors her on the other side. Waterstone sticks her wand through the open door and blindly casts another Body Bind that Snape dodges, but it takes him further away from Travers, and as he hurriedly throws up a shield to protect him from the flurry of spells now being thrown at him, he realises he's got no chance of memory charming him or the other Aurors. He retreats towards the kitchen and slams the door shut, casting the strongest Locking Charm he knows.

Fuller's flat is sixteen stories up and doesn't have any handy fire escape outside the window, but Snape doesn't need it. The locked door holds Waterstone and Banks back just long enough for him to pull down the Anti-Apparition Spells they put up and he vanishes with a crack just as the two Aurors crash through the kitchen door.

He reappears in Spinners End and swears violently, kicking the sofa. He thinks, trying to figure out what to do. He estimates Travers will get word to Voldemort within the hour about him and Snape has no way of stopping him. Voldemort will want to confirm Travers' story, which will likely mean coming to Spinners End. No one will be able to get inside, but the multitude of protections on the house will be enough to raise suspicion.

Snape doubts Voldemort will summon Harry until then at the earliest; he'll likely also assume Harry will turn on him the moment he mentions Snape being alive and won't want to leave Harry with his power when it happens, so will probably trick him into a pair of magic suppressing chains before bringing the issue up, which will leave Harry powerless to defend himself when Voldemort inevitably confirms the story.

All of which makes Snape's priority getting a warning to Harry to stop him answering his next summons. He'll probably argue, say he has to go to keep Sirius and James safe, but they're dead anyway. The moment Voldemort confirms Snape's existence he'll activate the Word of Death Curse on Sirius. If Harry is lucky, Voldemort might wait until he has Harry, because any leverage he has on him will be lost the moment Sirius and James die.

But how to contact Harry? A Patronus message isn't an option, not while Harry's at Hogwarts and the message can be heard by anyone near him. Owls are too slow and will get checked before entering the castle anyway. He considers the Assistant, but has no idea how to contact him, either; he only shows up when he needs the Wolfsbane, which he won't until tomorrow—too late for Harry. He considers the possibility that Voldemort might not want to raise suspicion by summoning Harry during school, especially with the summer holidays only two weeks away, but he dismisses the thought; Voldemort will realise Snape's first priority is warning Harry. He'll want to get Harry to him as soon as possible.

He considers the Order of the Phoenix. He's been seen by five Aurors, after all; the Ministry will find out about him and check if he's really dead, though they'll take longer about it than Voldemort, but it does mean the general public will eventually find out. He might as well go to the Order, get word to Dumbledore, and warn Harry that way. There's just the matter of figuring out who in the Order to go to, and how to convince them he's really him quick enough to keep Harry safe. He only knows the address of some of the Order members—Sirius and James, who are no good now they're teaching; the Weasleys; and Mundungus Fletcher. He could go to Grimmauld Place, but there's no guarantee there'll be anyone there.

Still, he thinks, he has to try.

* * *

Travers tells his team he's going to the Ministry but he takes a detour first. He knows the minute he gets to the Ministry he won't be able to leave again for a while, too bogged down with having to deal with the drug raid and the unexpected complications that arise from it. So he goes to the Riddle House first

"He's not here, Travers," Lucius says, having come from the dining room to investigate the racket he hears and finds Travers pounding on the sitting room door. "Why the urgency?"

"Snape," Travers says.

"What about him?"

"He's alive."

Lucius gives a condescending smile. "I can assure you he's not. I saw him die myself."

"Then how come I just saw him on a drug raid, Malfoy? He was Polyjuiced to look like someone else but it wore off while we were there."

"Perhaps it just looked like him. Severus is dead, Travers."

Travers shakes his head angrily. "It was him, Malfoy. We fought, but he got away before we could detain him. I really don't care if you don't believe me, but I'm telling the Dark Lord and letting him decide what to do about it," he says just as there's a crack of someone Apparating in behind him.

"Shouldn't you be at school?" Lucius drawls at Harry, a look of contempt on his face.

"I killed Dumbledore," Harry says numbly.

"You're lying," Travers says scornfully. Harry glances at him then looks back at Lucius.

"Where is he? I need to tell him."

"He's not here, Evans. Go wait in the kitchen."

Harry nods and walks past them without another word, disappearing into the kitchen. Lucius waits until the door's shut behind him before turning back to Travers.

"You're sure you saw Severus?" he asks quietly.

"I know I did, Malfoy."

"Do not tell anyone else, especially not _him_ ," Lucius says with a nod of his head towards the kitchen door.

* * *

Harry stares at his hands as he sits on a chair in the kitchen; they're shaking slightly. He wants to go to Spinner's End and see Snape, but he thinks he might breakdown the moment he does so he comes here first, knowing he needs to report to Voldemort.

Cold hands clamp down on his shoulders and he shivers as Riddle's body presses against his back.

" _You told them_."

"What does it matter?"

The hands shift to his neck and squeeze hard. Harry gasps, scratching at Riddle's hands. " _I told you not to tell anyone. I told you to keep me a secret. I don't need the world knowing about me._ " Riddle bends and Harry feels his lips against his ear. " _You don't need the world knowing about me._ "

Harry can't think to reply but the kitchen door opens then and Riddle's grip loosens. Harry gasps a breath in and swivels his eye to see Lucius step into the room, giving Harry a filthy look as he moves over to a chair.

" _No one else knows_ ," Riddle hisses maliciously, his hands briefly tightening again in warning.

* * *

"Sirius, what are we doing?"

"Packing," Sirius says, waving his wand and making books, clothes, and other assorted items fly around the bedroom and in from the living room to zoom into his trunk.

"Why? We can't go after Harry. He left his bracelet behind."

Sirius' hand clenches around said bracelet as he looks down at it.

"Even if he hadn't," James continues, "we can't go after him. You know where he's gone."

"He'll report on the death, but he won't stay. He'd never stay around the Death Eaters. He'll go somewhere, Prongs."

"We have no idea where. This is _Harry_ we're talking about. He knows how to hide himself and he thinks that the entire Auror division is out for him—and they will be when Kingsley reports the death."

Sirius whirls, glaring at his old friend. "I don't care, Prongs. I don't even care that finding Harry and staying with him is helping a fugitive and will put us on the Ministry shit list. I have to find him and tell him I don't hate him for what he's done."

"Don't you?" James asks quietly.

" _No,_ " Sirius snarls. "I don't. He's my godson and you saw him in there, Prongs. He wasn't happy about what he was doing. He did it for me—for _us_. The least we can do is tell him we bloody appreciate it."

"We appreciate him killing Dumbledore, do we?" James says coldly.

"You know what I mean," Sirius snaps. "But fine, if you hate him, then stay. I'm not making you come."

James scowls. "I don't hate him and you know I'll come with you wherever you go." He pauses then adds quietly, "I don't have much choice."

* * *

"You're certain of this?" Voldemort asks Travers.

"Absolutely, my lord. It was him, without a doubt."

"How long would it take the Ministry to confirm it?"

"Possibly days. They've got five corroborating stories but digging up the dead isn't exactly top of their priorities right now, my lord. Even if I try and rush it, it'll take hours."

"My lord?" Lucius enquires.

"Speak, Lucius."

"Perhaps digging up the dead is precisely the action necessary. The body in Severus' coffin could be as false as the one put in James Potter's."

"Harry will need to be restrained first. I cannot risk him turning on me if he discovers I know this. Travers, you're dismissed; deal with the Ministry. Lucius, fetch Harry." Lucius bows and leaves, but he's back within a minute, Harry trailing after him. "Lucius tells me you claim to have killed Dumbledore."

"Yes, my lord," Harry murmurs.

"How?"

"I broke his neck."

"There were witnesses?"

"All the Heads of Houses, Sirius and James, and Kingsley Shacklebolt and Nymphadora Tonks."

Voldemort grins maliciously. "Aurors. You have done well, Harry."

"Thank you, my lord. Am I dismissed?"

"Not yet; I have something else for you, but I need to speak with Lucius first. Wait outside."

Harry turns to leave, but only takes two steps before the silent Stunning Spell hits his back and he crumples to the floor, unconscious.

"Chain him," Voldemort orders, and Lucius comes forward with a pair of shackles, snapping them around Harry's wrists. "Take Bellatrix and dig up Snape's grave. I want to know if he's really in it."

* * *

The Assistant spends all day hanging around Dumbledore, invisible, waiting to see him die. When it's done, he follows Harry out the castle, just as invisible. When they leave the grounds, they Disapparate, and the Assistant reappears in Spinner's End, which is where he expects Harry to go first, but Harry never shows up. The house is entirely empty, in fact, and the Assistant assumes Snape is off delivering potions to his dealer. He settles on the sofa to wait, but fifteen minutes pass with no sign of Harry, who he guesses has gone to report to Voldemort, and then half an hour with no sign of Snape either, and the Assistant starts to think there's something wrong.


	87. Chapter 87

"Sirius! James!"

Sirius considers ignoring McGonagall's shout, but decides it will likely be easier just to confront her and make their intentions, or at least some of them, known. He halts and turns away from the castle front doors, reaching into his pocket for his wand but not drawing it.

"I need you to go to the Weasleys," she tells him and James urgently, hurrying up to them and speaking quietly as she glances around the Entrance Hall. The other teachers have been roused and wait about with teary eyes and shocked mutters, some comforting others. Dumbledore hasn't been taken from the Great Hall and Sirius can see Tonks standing just inside.

"Why?"

"Because they've just contacted me to say that Severus Snape is sitting at their kitchen table," she tells them in a whisper.

* * *

"I've never dug up someone's grave," Bellatrix remarks as she and Lucius move through the small graveyard.

"I can't imagine why you'd want to," Lucius mutters, shining his dimly lit wand onto the gravestones as he searches for the right one.

"It's a waste of time. We saw Snape die."

"If anyone could fake his death, Evans can."

"In front of the Dark Lord? He would have to be an idiot."

"Here," Lucius says, stopping by the newest headstone in the graveyard. He turns, looking around to check there's no one about, but it's just the two of them. "Dig it up."

* * *

James and Sirius fix their wands on Snape the moment they enter the Burrow kitchen. Arthur stands nearby, wand in hand but not raised. Molly's in a chair, face tear-streaked and looking ready to start crying again at any moment, and Bill stands over her, a comforting hand on his mother's shoulder while he watches Snape with distrustful eyes. Snape sits restlessly opposite Molly, both hands on the table, fingers drumming, mouth set into a scowl that deepens when he sees the two Marauders.

"Who are you?" Sirius demands.

"Severus Snape."

"Snape's dead.

Snape sighs irritably and shifts his gaze to James. "Lily had a tattoo of a stag on her left buttock. She got it after losing a bet to you, but threatened to castrate you if you ever told anyone."

James tightens the grip on his wand. "How do you know that?"

"Because I'm the only other man she ever slept with and thus the only other person to see it, and my death was faked."

James slowly lowers his wand. Sirius doesn't. "I saw you die, Snape."

"You saw Harry pretend to kill me," Snape corrects with a sneer. "Did he really kill Dumbledore?"

James nods.

"Then he's in danger. I was seen this evening; it's the only reason I've come here. A Death Eater found out about me which means the Dark Lord will find out. He might already know. If he does, he'll kill Harry if he goes to him."

"And us," James says.

Snape nods. "The fact you're both alive might mean he doesn't know yet, or he's biding his time."

Sirius lowers his wand reluctantly. "If Harry can get away, do you know where he might go?"

Snape hesitates, but answers, "My house. But the Dark Lord is also likely to send someone there to try and confirm my existence."

"Then we go there," Sirius declares. "You take us both."

"I'm not taking you anywhere, Black."

"That's my godson, Snape, and I want to find him. If you don't..." He lifts his wand and fixes it on Snape's face. Snape glances angrily at Arthur, who has his wand, then back at Sirius.

"Fine."

* * *

Lucius looks at the glass dragon he's taken from Snape's empty coffin, idly admiring the sculpture. Bellatrix holds Harry's Death Eater mask and pokes the powder lining the coffin.

"Not exactly what I was expecting," she says.

"No," Lucius murmurs, putting the dragon down and reaching for the book in the coffin instead. "But it looks like Travers was right. Severus is alive."

"We should report."

"Hang on." Lucius puts the book back, rising to his feet and flicking his wand to levitate the lid back on the coffin. He shrinks it, picks it up, and pockets it, looking around as he speaks again. "Severus had a house not far from here. He may be there."

Bellatrix looks sceptical. "He's not stupid, Lucius. He wouldn't go back there after being found out."

"He likely has nowhere else to go, and at the very least we should check it."

* * *

The Assistant stands in the corner of the Riddle House sitting room, a frown on his face. Harry is crumpled on the floor, unconscious and chained. Voldemort sits in his usual seat, apparently waiting for something though the Assistant's not sure what. For Harry to wake, perhaps. But why chain him? Harry killed Dumbledore; Voldemort has no reason to turn on him now... unless he decided that he no longer has need of Harry. But the Assistant knows Voldemort won't waste the effort of killing him, not when he knows Harry has less than a year before his deal is up and the hellhounds come to kill him anyway. So what reason does he have to make Harry powerless?

* * *

Sirius, James, and Snape arrive on Spinner's End, turn towards number seventy-nine, and then a green light bolts out from between two houses further down the street, whizzing past Sirius close enough to ruffle his hair, and all three men turn towards the alley, wands out.

"Show yourselves, you cowards!" Sirius yells. Snape moves away from them, towards the houses opposite his own, wanting to get out of the middle of the street, and watches as two figures come out of the alley, both with wands drawn and both very familiar.

"I really didn't think you'd be stupid enough to come back here, Severus," Lucius drawls.

"Let's just kill them, Lucius," Bellatrix snaps, her own wand fixed on Sirius and James.

"No. The Dark Lord will want Severus, and I want my pet back."

James snarls a curse that Lucius blocks with a shield. Bellatrix throws one back but Sirius and James both dodge, then all five of them are flinging spells. Despite Lucius' words, Bellatrix attempts another Killing Curse that barely misses Snape. Lucius yells at her and doesn't manage to dodge a hex from James that knocks him off his feet. Snape's hit by one from Bellatrix almost at the same moment and he staggers, dropping to his knees as his ribcage constricts, and then the air is filled with a loud crack as three Aurors Apparate into the street. Sirius drops to the ground, grabbing James and pulling him down with him as there's a thunder of, " _Stupefy!_ " and jets of red fly through the air. Bellatrix Disapparates just before two of them hit her and Lucius, still on the ground, vanishes almost immediately after.

Snape's on the brink of passing out from lack of oxygen when someone thinks to cast _Finite Incantatem_ on him. He gasps as his ribs expand back to normal then falls into a coughing fit.

"Liara Hawthorne, Auror," he hears a female voice introduce. "Now which of you wants to tell me what was going on here?"

"We were attacked by Death Eaters," James answers.

"Those two that took off? What about him? He one of them?"

"Possibly," Sirius says.

"Fuck you, Black," Snape wheezes.

"Get him up," Hawthorne orders and Snape's hauled to his feet by two well-built males. Hawthorne—tall, stern-faced, and in her thirties—looks him over with a frown. "You look familiar. What's your name?"

"Severus Snape," he answers snarkily, "and I would appreciate it if you'd let go of me."

"Snape?" she repeats, leaning closer to peer at him. "Merlin's beard, you are. I thought you were dead."

"Join the club," Sirius mutters.

* * *

"Well?" Voldemort demands the moment Bellatrix appears. Lucius arrives mere seconds later with a shout of pain and blood soaking through his trouser leg.

"Snape's definitely alive, my lord," Bellatrix says. "We fought him but Aurors arrived before we could get him."

Voldemort's face is furious. "Do you mean to tell me that twice my Death Eaters have faced Severus Snape today and failed to take him in?"

The Assistant creeps over to Harry while Voldemort's torturing Bellatrix and Lucius for their failure. He doesn't bother to remove the chains or wake him, just grabs him firmly by both arms, and Disapparates. They reappear in the Assistant's cave over Hogsmeade and the Assistant removes the chains before waking Harry, who blinks his eyes open, looks at the Assistant, then jerks up, looking around in panic.

"Where am I?"

"My cave. You're safe."

"But I was in the Riddle House. The Dark Lord, he stunned me."

"Do you know why?"

Harry shakes his head. "I told him I killed Dumbledore and he stunned me. What happened? How did I get here?"

"I brought you. Voldemort knows about Severus."

Harry's face goes white. "W-what?"

"I was there just now. Lucius and Bellatrix turned up and said they fought him; I can only guess Voldemort found out somehow and that's why he chained you, then he sent them to investigate. I got you out of there before he could start punishing you."

"But he'll kill Sirius!" Harry cries. "I have to go back!"

The Assistant grabs him as he tries to stand. "Harry, Sirius is dead even if you go back. You think sacrificing yourself is going to keep him from killing them? Voldemort will activate the Word of Death Curse no matter what. You betrayed him."

"But..."

"I'm sorry, Harry. This is the risk you took when you chose not to kill Severus."

Harry shakes his head, shoving him away and getting to his feet. "No, he won't use the Word of Death Curse."

"Harry—"

"Shut up, I need to think!"

The Assistant falls quiet, watching Harry close his eyes, hands clenching by his sides, letting out a long, slow breath, then murmuring quietly, "Lord Voldemort will forget the trigger for Sirius Black's Word of Death Curse. Lord Voldemort will not activate Sirius Black's Word of Death Curse."

* * *

"I have to warn Dad."

"He fought them, Harry, I think he knows," the Assistant says dryly.

"I still need to go. I have to make sure he's okay."

The Assistant sighs. "I'm coming with you. But if he's got any sense he won't have gone back to Spinner's End."

"Why?" Harry asks with a frown.

"It's the first place they'll look for him, Harry."

"But it's got loads of protections on it, he'd be safe there."

"Even so, it'd be dangerous to go back there, but we'll look."

Harry and the Assistant Apparate together straight into the sitting room. Harry immediately swivels his eye, searching the house, then whirling to look towards the door. "He's outside and so's Sirius and James and three Aurors."

He hears movement and looks around to see the Assistant opening the bookcase hiding the stairs.

"Where are you going?"

"Not all of us can look through walls and Severus does insist on covering all his windows."

Harry goes after him, following him up to the second bedroom that now makes up Snape's lab. The Assistant flicks his hand to move aside a table holding a cauldron and some ingredients so they can get to the window, then jerks open the curtains and looks out onto the street below.

"Do you think that's where they fought?" Harry asks.

The Assistant nods. "Bellatrix mentioned Aurors."

"They look okay, all of them."

"We'll go out when the Aurors have gone, assuming they don't take them in for questioning."

"I can't go out!"

The Assistant frowns down at him. "Why not?"

"I _killed Dumbledore._ Sirius and James probably hate me now."

"You're an idiot," the Assistant says. "They don't hate you."

"You don't know that. Sirius said I should have let him and James die instead of killing Dumbledore."

"I know, I was there, but that doesn't mean he'll hate you now."

"You were there?"

The Assistant nods. "I was tailing Dumbledore all day, waiting for it."

"You told him," Harry realises. "He knew he was going to die."

"I told him today was a Key Point, but I didn't mention what exactly would happen. He's not stupid though; he figured it out the moment you said you were going to kill him."

Harry glances at him nervously. "You, um... you were there the whole time?"

"Uh huh. Do you really hallucinate Tom Riddle?"

Harry shivers and shifts closer to the window as though trying to draw away from something. "Yes."

"How long's that been going on?"

"Since March."

"Still hearing that voice in your head?"

"He is the voice."

"Hmm."

"Have I been crazy in other timelines?"

"You've been a lot of things in other timelines, but yeah, crazy's one of them."

Harry looks relieved.

* * *

"Alright, we're done here," Hawthorne says. "Mr Snape, you're going to have to come down the Ministry in the morning and get legally recognised as alive, and all three of you can expect owls with the date of your hearing."

"Hearing?" James repeats worriedly.

"You used magic on a Muggle street, Mr Potter. Self-defence or not, it'll have to go before the court. Johnson, Adams, I'm heading back to the Ministry. You two stay here and wait for the Obliviators. They're going to have to go door-to-door; no idea who might have seen what."

Sirius, James, and Snape move over to number seventy-nine as Hawthorne Disapparates and Adams and Johnson wander away a short distance.

"You can't get in there, Black," Snape murmurs as Sirius tries the front door. "Harry put blood protections in place; only someone related to him can get inside."

"Then get the fuck in there and see if Harry's there," Sirius growls.

"What do we do if he's not?" James asks as Snape opens the door and moves inside.

"I don't know."

* * *

Harry turns from the window when he hears Snape enter the house and hurries out the room, tearing down the stairs to meet him.

"The Dark Lord knows you're alive."

"I know. Has he summoned you?"

Harry shakes his head. "I killed Dumbledore and I went straight there and I told him and then he stunned me, but when I woke up the Assistant had me in his cave and he said Bellatrix and Lucius fought you and now the Dark Lord knows about you."

"You were there?" Snape asks the Assistant as he comes down the stairs.

"I was at the Riddle House. I watched Dumbledore's death, came here after because I thought Harry would, but neither of you turned up so after half an hour I went to Riddle's, found Harry stunned and chained, hung about until Lucius and Bellatrix came back and mentioned the fight. I don't know how he found out about you in the first place though."

"Travers," Snape gives by way of explanation. "Black and Potter are outside, Harry. You should let them in. The Dark Lord could kill them at any moment."

Harry shakes his head. "I made him forget the trigger for the Word of Death Curse. They're safe."

"Let them in anyway. Loathe as I am to have them in my house, they're worried about you."

"Told you they won't hate you," the Assistant says. "Let them in."

Harry glances between Snape and the Assistant nervously. "What if they give me to the Aurors? They're still out there. I don't want to go to Azkaban."

Snape raises an eyebrow. "Surely you don't believe Black would ever let you go there? He did spend twelve years in that place; he's not about to let his beloved godson go there."

"He's right," the Assistant says. "Let them in, Harry."

Sirius and James turn when the door to seventy-nine opens.

"Get in," Snape says, and shuts the door behind them the moment they've crossed the threshold.

"What's _he_ doing here?"

"Sirius, it's okay," Harry says, hands fiddling nervously as he looks at his godfather, who's glaring at the Assistant. "He's a good guy."

"He's a scumbag Death Eater."

"So am I," Harry says quietly.

"You're outnumbered by scumbag Death Eaters, Black," Snape says. "You might want to be careful about what you say."

Sirius grinds his teeth but doesn't comment on it. "You alright, kid?"

Harry shrugs, not quite looking at him. "Are you going to give me to the Aurors?"

"Why the hell would I do that?"

"I killed Dumbledore."

"I'm not letting you go to Azkaban, kid, even without the Dementors there."

"Do you hate me now?"

"Do you think I'd be here right now if I hated you?" Sirius says, moving forward to pull Harry into a hug. "C'mon, kid, give me a little credit."

"You said you never wanted to know what he made me do, that it'd make you only see me as a murderer."

"I was wrong. You're my godson, whatever you've done. I'm not going to die hating you."

Harry pulls away from the hug slightly to look up at him. "I made him forget the trigger for your Word of Death Curse. You're not going to die."

"What? When?"

"Just a little while ago, when I found out he knew about Dad."

" _Dad_?" Sirius repeats incredulously. "Since when is he _Dad_? And how is he even alive? I saw you kill him."

"I faked it."

"You can't have faked it. You cast the Killing Curse. He died. I was at his funeral."

"I'm touched," Snape sneers. "I never knew you cared, Black."

"Shove it, Snape. I went for Harry. How did you fake it, kid? And how long has he been running around alive? And why didn't you tell me? I thought we agreed you weren't going to keep secrets from me anymore."

"I know but you said he deserved to die and you were really hateful and I thought you'd be angry if you knew, and I didn't want it getting found out. How did you get found?" he asks Snape.

"My questions first," Sirius says before Snape can answer. "This time you tell me _everything_."

"We don't have time," Snape counters Sirius sharply. "We have to leave here."

"Why?" Harry asks. "This is the safest place to be. My protections—"

"They know we here," Snape interrupts him. "You can put your protections up elsewhere and we'll be a lot safer if no one knows where we are."

Harry looks to Sirius. "Home?"

Sirius shakes his head. "The Aurors will go looking for you there."

"But then where?"

"My cave?" the Assistant suggests. "No one knows about that and between the protections I can put up and Harry can put up, we can stop anyone from even accidentally finding it."

The others glance at each other. James shrugs. "It's somewhere for the night, at least. We can try to figure somewhere more permanent while we're there."

"You two," Snape says disdainfully to him and Sirius, "can surely return to Hogwarts."

"Doesn't mean we're going," Sirius tells him stubbornly. "I'm staying with my godson, even if it gets me on the wrong side of the law."

* * *

Draco sits on Harry's bed, one of Harry's shirts in his hands, alone in the dorm while everyone else sits in the common room discussing the news they've been given. Professor Sinistra hasn't specified the details of Dumbledore's death, but Draco doesn't need her to. He jumps when the shirt suddenly vanishes from his hands. Harry's trunk disappears as well, as does the cage with Lily and Rowena the Pygmy Puffs. Everything of Harry's vanishes from the room and Draco lets out a shaky sigh, hoping it's a sign that Harry's okay.

* * *

Voldemort crouches over the coffin Lucius brought with him. He's alone in the sitting room but for Nagini, and he holds the glass dragon in both hands. Harry's old wand, his Death Eater mask, and the chains are still in the coffin and the book about Horcruxes sits discarded to one side. An unpleasant smile spreads across his face as he considers the dragon.

"You have not escaped me yet, Harry Evans."


	88. Chapter 88

Before leaving Spinner's End, Snape packs a bag with a few clothes, some pre-made potions he thinks may be useful, and a bottle of vodka just because, and midnight finds him, Sirius, James, the Assistant, and Harry sat around a fire in the Assistant's cave. The Assistant puts up a variety of spells on the cave entrance to protect them and Harry makes a few Wishes, securing the five of them for the night. The chains Harry was wearing when the Assistant took him from the Riddle House are still there and Harry Wishes them away to Snape's coffin, and his trunk, Wished for from Hogwarts, sits at the rear of the cave.

Snape doesn't particularly want to share his vodka, but is reluctantly forced to if he wants to have any himself. The Assistant conjures five shot glasses and the tense mood of the place is eased slightly when Harry downs his shot and promptly starts coughing heavily, pulling a face that makes Sirius and James burst into laughter.

"How can you drink that?" Harry wheezes. "It's _foul_."

"You get used to it, kid. Another one?"

Harry shakes his head. Snape takes pity on him, transfigures his glass into a tumbler, and uses Aquamenti to fill it with water, which Harry gratefully gulps down.

After everyone's caught up on the events of the night, the Assistant tells Sirius and James his story and the first thing out of Sirius' mouth is, "Where was my counterpart during your timeline?"

The Assistant grimaces. "Azkaban, like you, but he escaped earlier when word of my adoption got out. He seemed to think Lucius had kidnapped me, worked dark magic, all that malarchy. He came straight to Malfoy Manor and wasn't overly impressed when I had the garden plants tie him down so I could fetch Lucius, who handed him over to the Ministry. He got Kissed."

Sirius blanches.

"What about Pettigrew?" James asks. "Didn't you ever find out the truth?"

The Assistant nods. "After the Dark Lord rose. He told me the truth and when I said I wanted Wormtail Kissed, he happily obliged me. I felt a bit bad about Sirius, but given everything bad I heard about him from Dad while I was growing up, I didn't care all that much about what happened to him."

"I need another drink," Sirius says, reaching for the vodka.

Harry is the first to fall asleep. He conjures pillows, blankets, and bed rolls for everyone then takes his own and curls up at the back of the cave next to his trunk. Snape moves away with his own, wanting to distance himself from the others, and the Assistant leaves Sirius and James at the fire to lie down asleep near the front of the cave.

* * *

Draco doesn't argue when Narcissa comes to collect him from Hogwarts. He's not the only student being pulled out after Dumbledore's death; lessons and exams are cancelled and he has no inclination to stay for the funeral. He has his things packed in ten minutes and five minutes after that he's in a carriage riding down to Hogsmeade.

"Draco, we need to talk about Harry Evans."

Draco looks at Narcissa, whose expression is one of aristocratic politeness—the expression he knows means she doesn't want to have the conversation they're about to have and she knows he won't like it either.

"I know he's responsible for Dumbledore, Mother," Draco says to save her the trouble. "I know he's been a Death Eater for a year."

"That will make this conversation a great deal easier, then. Are you also aware he was tasked with killing Severus Snape?"

Draco's jaw drops but he quickly snaps it shut because it's unbecoming to gape. "But Snape's his father!" he blurts out, then swears.

"Language, Draco," she scolds, then, "I already know about that; I have done for some time."

"I suppose Father told you."

"Harry has betrayed the Dark Lord," Narcissa says, not responding to his comment. "Severus Snape is alive and the Dark Lord believes Harry is also working with another traitor."

"Snape's _alive_?"

"I don't know the details of how, but yes. Draco," she says and her voice is softer now, "I hope you realise what it means that Harry is a traitor."

"Of course. The Dark Lord will..." he trails off, clears his throat, then finishes weakly, "he'll kill him."

* * *

"Hey, Snape. Snape? Snapey?"

"What?" Snape snaps, rolling over to glare furiously at Sirius. "And don't ever call me that again."

"Then answer the first time I speak to you," Sirius replies, sitting cross-legged beside him. "And don't claim you were asleep because I know you weren't."

"What do you want, Black? If you can't sleep, I'm happy to help put you in a permanent one."

"You wouldn't kill me."

Snape's expression says otherwise, but Sirius jerks a thumb across the cave to where Harry sleeps, the dying firelight throwing his face into sharp relief and highlighting just how much weight he's lost in the past year.

"He'd kill you if you killed me. You wouldn't do that to him."

"What do you want?" Snape repeats angrily.

"Did Harry ever tell you about his deal?"

"What deal?"

"Nice to know I'm not the only one he kept things from," Sirius says dryly, then, "I'm only telling you this because I think you might be able to help. You've been up to your eyeballs in dark magic your whole life and you had a lot of nasty looking books back at that house, so I figure you might know something."

"Spit it out, Black. What deal?"

"A demon deal. Harry's power isn't natural. He sold his soul to a demon for it when he was seven."

Snape sits up, staring over at Harry with his jaw clenching. "Let me guess—right after Dursley nearly killed him."

Sirius nods. "He gets ten years then this demon will come and kill him to take his soul to hell. His time runs out May second next year. I've been looking for a way to break it but I never found anything in the Hogwarts library."

"Most of the books I have on demons are classification tomes, summoning rituals, binding spells and warding sigils. I can't recall ever reading anything about breaking demon deals—from what I recall, they're extremely persevering and will hunt their prey no matter what."

"That's not encouraging."

Snape scowls at him. "There may be something, but I would need to get home and check the books. Obviously this is going be difficult." He drums his fingers against his thigh, thoughtful eyes fixing on Harry. "If we can take ten minutes, he can probably create a trunk large enough to put them all in then I can check them when we've moved on. Alternately, the Assistant might know something. If Harry's power is bought, his may be as well."

"Ten years, Snape. He'd be dead if the power was bought."

"Time loop, Black. It might be enough to keep him earth bound, at least until he breaks it."

Sirius frowns. "That doesn't sound like the best way of getting out of a deal."

"I would hardly recommend trying anyway. The universe might not like two Harry's stuck in a time loop.

* * *

Hermione's first thought when she hears that Harry's responsible for Dumbledore's death is to refuse it and defend him, but it's only a knee jerk reaction to hearing her friend get called a murderer. By the time Neville finishes his shouting match with Seamus and Ron, who are adamant that Harry's responsible, and stomps over to drop into the chair beside her, she realises that it's true.

"Can you believe people would even think that?" Neville fumes. "As if Harry would ever kill Dumbledore. As if he'd ever work for Voldemort!"

Hermione says nothing. Neville looks at her, his eyes going wide. "Hermione! You can't believe that!"

She shifts her chair closer, speaking quietly. "I don't want to, Neville. Harry's the first friend I ever had and I love him, but... well, didn't you ever think that the story about Voldemort just giving up on trying to recruit him last year was a bit... weak?"

"Well—that's—I... you don't really think he actually said yes?"

"Voldemort doesn't seem like the kind of person to just give up on something like that. Even if he did decide Harry wasn't going to join him, I doubt he'd just let him go, even with a Word of Death Curse on Sirius. Don't you think he'd have just killed them both?"

"I... maybe," he admits reluctantly.

"I think—and I hate it, Neville, I really do—but I think Harry said yes and Voldemort put the Word of Death Curse on Sirius to make sure Harry didn't betray him."

"But what about our lessons with Dumbledore?" Neville says, unwilling to admit that, as always, what Hermione says makes sense. "Do you think he really wanted to find out how to kill Voldemort, or just get information for Voldemort?"

"I think he really wants to kill Voldemort," Hermione says slowly. "After all Voldemort's done to him, I think Harry's not really loyal to him. He's just doing what he has to to protect Sirius."

"By killing Dumbledore? What if he's not the first? What if he's killed other people? Is Sirius' life worth that?"

"I don't know, Neville. Maybe to Harry. Sirius is like a father to him—a real father. Harry would probably do anything to keep him alive."

* * *

_Please look after Hedwig, Lily and Rowena._

Cid thinks Harry's got some nerve. He finds the note on his pillow and if he were a lesser person he'd ignore the note and let the three fend for themselves, but he loves animals too much and he grew a little attached to the snowy white owl when he cared for her two years ago after Harry ran off. So although he tosses the note in the bin, he'll still takes Hedwig, Lily, and Rowena with him when he goes home.

* * *

Snape wakes before sunrise to the noise of hissing. At first he thinks he's hearing things, but then he realises it's coming from Harry, and he rolls over and sits up as Harry starts whimpering in between bouts of hissing. He rises from his bed roll, moving to Harry's and shaking his shoulder. An invisible force slams into him the moment he touches Harry and he's thrown backwards to slam into one wall, hitting it with a grunt and dropping to land on top of Prongs, who jerks awake with a bellow and scrambles out from under him, ramming his antlers into Snape's thigh in the process before eventually having the presence of mind to transform.

"What the fuck?" James shouts, waking the rest of the cave's occupants. Snape groans and swears at him. Across the cave, Harry jerks up, looking around with wide eyes.

"What happened?"

"Snape's trying to kill James," Sirius says, drawing his wand.

"Fuck you, Black, he's the fucking idiot that almost impaled my leg."

"What the hell were you doing in the first place?" James demands. Snape glares at him, sitting up despite the pain throbbing in his head and leg.

"I was trying to wake Harry; he threw me across the room. If you want to blame anyone for your rude wake up, blame him."

"I'm sorry," Harry apologises immediately, getting up and going over. "I didn't mean to. Are you hurt? I can fix you."

"I'm fine," Snape replies sharply. "Next time you can sleep through the nightmare."

Harry's eyes flick to one side and a flicker of fear seems to flash in his gaze, but it's gone as quick as it comes.

"I'm sorry," he says again.

"Stop apologising."

Harry bites his lip and Snape has a feeling he's stopping himself from apologising for apologising.

"What happens now?" Harry asks. "What are we supposed to do? Did anyone figure out a place we can go last night?"

Their silence is all the answer he needs.

"Before we do anything, I want a conversation with you, kid," Sirius says.

"About what?" Harry asks warily.

"Riddle."

Harry looks away. "I don't want to talk about him."

"I can't see why you'd need to," Snape says with a frown. "Why are you bringing him up, Black?"

"Because your son here has progressed from hearing voices to seeing things."

Snape looks sharply at Harry, who stares at the floor and says nothing. "Since when?"

"March," Harry mumbles.

"You're seeing Riddle? Tom Riddle?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Tough," Sirius says in a tone that says he's not letting the matter drop easily. "I didn't push it when you said you were hearing voices, but this is clearly progressing, kid. This can't be ignored."

"It's not like you can do anything about it," Harry says with a hint of desperation. "You can't even take me to a healer now. I can't go anywhere."

"Doesn't mean we can't talk about it."

"It doesn't matter!"

"The hell it doesn't!"

"You can't do anything! You can't make him go away!"

"Can't you?"

They all look at James.

"What?" Harry says.

"With your Wish Magic. You seem to be able to do a lot of stuff; can't you Wish him away?"

" _Don't even try_ ," Riddle hisses warningly when Harry glances at him.

"I can't fix everything," Harry says to James. "My head's too broken from the brain damage."

"Have you tried?"

"I..."

" _Don't._ "

Harry closes his eyes, starts to Wish, and Riddle lunges.

Snape, Sirius, and James all cry out when Harry suddenly falls back as though he's been tackled. He hits the floor and gasps, choking and grabbing at invisible hands around his neck. When they and the Assistant reach towards him, gravity seems to increase beneath them and they all collapse, unable to lift even a finger.

The Assistant closes his eyes, trying to ignore the weight pulling him down, and concentrates. When he opens them again, his eyes are bright green and glowing, giving off a light of their own as they fix on Harry—and the humanoid mass of magic sitting on him.

" _I told you not to_ ," Riddle hisses, cold hands tight around Harry's throat, weight heavy on his hips. " _And quite frankly, I'm offended you'd even try. I thought we had a connection, Harry. I've been with you for so long; why are you trying to get rid of me now, hm?_ "

"Stop," Harry gasps. "Please."

Riddle's hands loosen slightly, but he grins and bends down, putting their faces closes. " _You're so very pretty when you beg. Prettier when you apologise. Do that and I'll let you go. Don't, and I'll wring your scrawny little neck until you pass out. So what's it going to be?_ "

Harry whimpers. Riddle's hands tighten.

"Sorry!" Harry wheezes.

" _Say that again_ ," Riddle murmurs, hands loosening.

" _I'm sorry_ ," Harry says, slipping into Parseltongue. " _I'm sorry, I won't do it again._ "

Riddle smirks, takes his hands from Harry's neck and brushes the back of his fingers against Harry's cheek. " _Good boy. Make sure that you don't_."

Sirius is the first to get to Harry when they can finally move again, crawling quickly to him as Harry rolls onto his side and coughs, rubbing at his throat.

"'Doesn't matter', huh?"

"Do hallucinations normally attack people?" James asks warily.

"Harry doesn't do anything normally," Snape says dryly, then to Harry, "Are you alright?"

Harry nods, not looking at any of them even as he pushes himself up.

"Bullshit," Sirius says. "You've got to realise this is a problem, kid. This 'hallucination' is hijacking your magic to hurt you and stop people helping you."

"What do you expect me to do, Sirius?" Harry asks him angrily. "He did that because I tried to Wish him away, like James suggested, so really—what do you expect me to do?"

Sirius has no answer to that.

"Whoa. Why are your eyes glowing?" James asks the Assistant, prompting everyone else to look around at him as he sits up.

"They did that before," Harry says. "In the Department of Mysteries, when I stole the prophecy." He watches the Assistant's eyes move, tracking something. It doesn't take him long to realise what and he gasps. "You can see him, can't you?"

The Assistant nods. His gaze is fixed on Riddle, who now stands on the far side of the cave, arms folded over his chest and expression turning to one of anger at the confirmation.

"He's a manifestation of magic."

"What?"

"He's magic. Literally, I'm seeing magic in the figure of a human. Your magic, which would be why only you can see him."

"But he's a hallucination, of course only I can see him."

"Well, yeah, but he's a hallucination given magical form. I expect if you tried you might be able to make him visible to others."

There's a pause then Harry mutters, "No. He won't like that."

"He's yours. Control him, Harry."

Harry shakes his head, wrapping his arms around himself. "Can you stop? We need to figure out what to do now."

The Assistant closes his eyes then opens them again to show to blue irises, no longer glowing but out of focus for a minute until he shakes his head and blinks a few times.

"I do have a suggestion of something you could do," he answers Harry, crawling across the cave towards the back. "It would actually solve a great deal of problems."

"What is it?"

"Give me a minute. I—"

A bird screeches and they all whirl around just in time to see a large eagle owl slam into the invisible barrier across the front of the cave and then drop to the floor. Before anyone can stop him, Harry darts forward, dispelling the barrier and crouching by the bird.

"It's Draco's! How do I know if it's dead? I don't think it's breathing."

Snape stalks forwards, reaching down to snatch Harry's wrist before he can touch the bird, drawing a startled look from Harry. "What?"

"It could be cursed."

"Why would Draco curse—"

"By the Dark Lord, you dunderhead." He roughly hauls Harry to his feet and away from the bird, who twitches, proving itself alive. There's a letter tied to one leg. Snape draws his wand, waving it to make the letter untie and then float slowly over to him. Harry reaches for it, but Snape slaps his hands away. "Don't touch it."

"There's no need to be harsh," Sirius says, coming over.

"It could be cursed or poisoned, Black."

"There's still no need to be harsh or to hit him."

"I—"

"Can we just open it?" Harry interrupts them. "If it is from Draco, I want to see what it says."

Snape flicks his wand and the envelope opens itself. There's a short missive inside, along with a photograph. Harry inches closer to look at both.

_Come to me, or he dies_ , the note reads, and his attention shifts to the photograph, inhaling sharply as he looks at an image of Draco knelt on the floor of the Malfoy Manor drawing room, wrists bound with rope, blood dripping from a cut on his cheek, and Bellatrix behind him, one hand tangled in Draco's hair to jerk his head back so she can hold a knife to his throat.

The nearly dead fire in the centre of the cave suddenly flares, making the adults jump and the Assistant yelp, being closest to it, and then Draco appears on the floor just in front of Harry. He's not bound as in the picture and there's no cut on his cheek, but he's pale and scrambles to his feet, blurting out, "It's a trap."

Snape and Sirius both grab Harry to stop him grabbing Draco and pulling him into a hug.

"Get off!"

"Harry, you heard him," Sirius says. "It's a trap."

"You can't touch him; he could be carrying a portkey or any kind of touch activated spell," Snape agrees.

"Fine! Let go of me. I won't touch him."

They do so, but remain wary and ready to grab him at any moment.

"Are you carrying a portkey?" Harry asks Draco, demanding the truth with magic.

"No."

"He might not know it," Snape warns.

"I don't think so," Draco says. "The trap is in the photo. He told me. He expected you to do this—bring me to you to save me. He never intended to actually kill me."

"Can I hug him now?"

Snape clamps a hand on Harry's shoulder. "No. Not until we've checked the picture."

"Just burn it," Sirius suggests.

"Bad idea," the Assistant counters. "If it's coated with something, it could explode."

Harry makes a Wish and the photo vanishes. "It's now in Mount Vesuvius. Problem solved. Can I hug him yet?"

Snape waves his wand and a dressing screen appears in front of Draco. "Vanish everything he's wearing," he tells Harry. "And I mean _everything_."

"Why?" Draco demands, peering around the screen. "I don't want to be naked!"

"Your very clothes could be a portkey or cursed, Draco. We cannot risk it."

Harry shoots Draco an apologetic look and makes a Wish. Draco yelps, jerking out of sight, and Harry conjures a fresh robe for him, hanging over the screen. Draco snatches it down and hurriedly dresses, and Snape vanishes the screen, nodding when Harry looks at him. Harry instantly stalks forwards, flinging his arms around Draco's neck and pulling him close.

"Are you okay?"

Draco returns the hug, pressing his face to Harry's shoulders. "Unnerved," he admits quietly, "but alright. Are you?"

"Better for having you here."

"Draco, do you happen to know anything of the Dark Lord's immediate plans or what he might know about us?" Snape asks, prompting the two boys to break apart, though Draco's arm slips around Harry's waist.

"No. My mother picked me up from the school last night; when we got home, he and my father and Aunt Bellatrix were there. They staged the photo then I was left under my father's watch while it was sent off."

"There's nothing you can tell us?" Snape persists. "You didn't see or hear anything?"

Draco shakes his head, then frowns and says, "Well there's the dragon, I guess. That seemed unusual."

James blanches. "He has a _dragon_?"

"Not a real one. A glass one, about this big," Draco tells them, removing his arm from Harry to put his hands six inches apart, and Harry inhales sharply. He holds out his hands and the dragon appears in them—and then both Harry and dragon vanish.


	89. Chapter 89

The curse hits Harry the moment he appears. Pain blossoms through every inch of him and he barely feels the floor as he hits it, screaming. It seems to last longer than he's ever felt it before, waves of agony spilling through him over and over until he would rather be dead than suffer another moment. Then, thankfully, it ends.

* * *

Snape grabs Draco and jabs his wand into his throat. "What was that? Where's he gone?!"

"I don't know!"

"You told him about it!"

"You asked!" Draco yells back at him. "I was just answering _your_ demands."

"Severus," the Assistant says, getting to his feet and stepping forwards. "Let him go, he's just a kid."

"He knows—"

"Nothing that will help you. Put him down. Harry's at Malfoy Manor, I can almost guarantee it, but this wasn't Draco's fault."

Snape withdraws from Draco, turning to look at the Assistant darkly. "What makes you so sure of that?"

"Because he described a glass dragon about yea big and that was all it took for Harry to react. Draco was never the trap, nor was the picture, they were both just the message. Draco—would the dragon have been visible in the picture?"

Draco thinks about it for a moment then nods. "It was on one of the tea tables behind me."

"I thought so. Voldemort knows that the dragon, for whatever reason, is important to Harry."

* * *

Harry opens his eyes to see smooth stone floor and moans weakly. He can taste blood and vomit in his mouth, his body throbs and aches, and his arms feel stupidly heavily. It takes him a moment to realise that that's not normal for him, and he shifts his head to look down. He sees thick metal wrapped around his wrists and doesn't understand it at first, then the memories of Draco at the cave come rushing back and he realises what happened.

He sits up then almost falls again as his head spins, but manages to stay upright and look around. He's in the Malfoy Manor drawing room, Voldemort sat regally in a chair facing him, Nagini asleep underneath, and no one else in sight. There's a tea table at his side with Harry's Horcrux sat on top of it.

"Tell me how you faked Severus Snape's death right in front of me," Voldemort orders.

"No."

" _Crucio!_ "

* * *

"We can't just go charging into Malfoy Manor! We're not Harry, we don't have that power, Black!"

"You're just going to abandon your son again then, Snape? Is that it?"

"No," Snape snarls, "but your Gryffindor stupidity is going to get us all killed and then we'll be no help to him at all."

"Then we use Draco as a hostage and demand an exchange."

"Padfoot, we're not using a kid as a hostage," James argues.

Draco almost points out that he's been seventeen for over a week and therefore not a child, but he doesn't want to be used as a hostage so decides to keep quiet. Fortunately, the Assistant steps in to side with James on the matter.

"When you lot have finished shouting at each other, I'd like to remind you that I'm perfectly capable of sneaking into Malfoy Manor and getting Harry out."

"Like we're going to trust _you_ with this," Sirius snaps at him. "Given your track record."

"Traitor now, remember? Also, not subject to my Masters orders anymore. I can get him out."

"They put new spells up all over the house," Draco warns. "Including preventing Apparition straight inside."

"I figured as much, which is why I will be sneaking in. Trust me, Draco. I'm an expert at this. If I'm not back in half an hour, move elsewhere."

"I thought you said you were an expert," James says.

"I am. Doesn't mean I can't make mistakes. Still human after all. Mostly."

"You're taking me with you," Sirius demands.

"I'm not."

"That's my godson! I'm coming with you!"

"No. This is an extraction mission; this does not need your particular brand of charging in and hexing everyone in sight. I am sneaking in, getting Harry, and sneaking out. The less people the better. I am going alone," the Assistant tells him and Disapparates without giving Sirius time to argue.

* * *

"Your mind will shatter, Harry," Voldemort says when he stops seizing.

"Already broke," Harry says weakly, pushing himself up with shaking arms. "I'm already—"

Riddle's hand slaps over his mouth and his face now is utterly furious and more terrifying than the real Voldemort in front of Harry.

" _Do. Not. Mention. Me,_ " he hisses. " _He cannot know. Your magic may be suppressed but I can get to enough of it to choke the life out of you and I will if you mention me._ "

"Your sanity may be in question," Voldemort says, thinking Harry was going to say he was already crazy, "but rest assured that the Cruciatus will leave you so broken you won't recognise your own face in the mirror. Save yourself the pain and mental strain and tell me how Severus Snape is alive."

Harry says nothing. Voldemort flicks his wand, bones snap, and Harry cries out as pain lashes through his foot.

"The Cruciatus is not the only way to inflict pain, Harry," he says coldly. "I can drag this out for a very long time before I have to break your mind."

" _Stop being stubborn and tell him,_ " Riddle snarls. " _This information is not worth the pain._ "

Another bone in his foot shatters, and he tells him. Voldemort's expression turns even more furious and with another sharp flick of his wand, more bones snap and Harry shrieks.

"Have you done the same for Albus Dumbledore?"

Harry shakes his head, bent over and whimpering pitifully at the pain in his foot. Every single bone in it has been shattered now—a taste of the punishment he'll get for his treachery.

"So you merely wished to save your worthless father. How very sentimental you are towards a man who didn't even care to raise you."

"He's my dad," he says quietly.

"A poor one. But I am done discussing Severus; he will die—properly—when I find him. It may even be soon if he cares enough to come looking for you. Let us discuss you instead, Harry, and what you're willing to do to keep this safe."

Harry lifts his gaze and looks at the Horcrux Voldemort gestures to, swallowing thickly as Voldemort smiles.

* * *

Lucius is in his study when one of his bookcases shifts. He picks up his wand from where it sits at his elbow but doesn't rise from his seat, merely turns to face the bookcase in question, holding his wand in front of him as it shudders backwards and then slides sideways to reveal a hidden tunnel behind it. The Assistant stands in the tunnel, but even as he looks into the study at Lucius, his eyelids droop and he sways dangerously. His disguise drifts in and out of place, his skin is greying and slicked with sweat, and he struggles to lift one hand, holding up his thumb to show a bead of blood on it. When he speaks, his words are slurred.

"You... poison... button..." he manages, and then topples forward and hits the floor with a thud. Lucius watches him for a moment, wand fixed on him and a curse on the tip of his tongue, but when the Assistant doesn't move he reaches over and jabs him with his toe, smiling smugly when there's no response. He stows his wand and opens a desk draw, pulling out a pair of magic suppressing chains and getting up to put them on the Assistant.

* * *

"Are you hoping this will keep you from being dragged to hell in a year?" Voldemort sneers. "Are you hoping it will save you from the deal you made?"

"Please put it back. Put it back in the coffin."

"The coffin has been destroyed. I had no need of it and your father's not currently using it. Of course, now this is no longer safe from the hellhounds."

"What do you want?" Harry says desperately.

"Sirius Black, James Potter, Severus Snape, and—"

There's a knock at the door. Voldemort points his wand at it and it swings open to reveal Lucius, levitating the chained and unconscious Assistant behind him and with Preston Yaxley walking beside him.

Lucius dumps the Assistant on the floor and crouches, taking a vial of translucent reddish potion from his pocket, uncorking it and pouring it into the Assistant's mouth, casting a spell to make him swallow. The Assistant stirs slowly, taking several minutes to come around and focus his eyes on his surroundings. He swears when he does.

"I really am very disappointed today," Voldemort says. "First Harry and now you, Assistant. I expected better of people who boast such power."

"Yeah, well, we all make mistakes and I didn't sleep much last night."

"And brought your Master for me too," Voldemort remarks, looking over at Yaxley, who stands to one side looking nervous.

"He makes a very pretty necklace."

"He will be punished for his inability to control you," Voldemort comments. "I'm curious to see how that affects you. Lucius, take Harry away; I am done with him. The Assistant will tell me everything I need with half as much trouble."

"He won't tell you anything," Harry says even as Lucius approaches him, but he doesn't sound sure and Voldemort sneers.

"Preston will make the Assistant talk whether he wants to or not."

"What's going to happen to me?"

"I will not kill you. You can die when the hounds of hell come for you; until then, you can remain here as a prisoner while I work to take your impressive magic from you and I shall allow my _loyal_ Death Eaters to punish you for your treachery as they see fit."

"What about my dragon? What are you going to do with it?"

Voldemort bares his teeth in the parody of a smile. "Fear not, Harry. I will take good care of your dragon. Lucius, take him to the cellar."

Lucius nods stiffly and levitates Harry down to the secret room in the cellar, dumping him unceremoniously on the floor and leaving without a word, shutting Harry in the room with no light. Harry feels his way to a corner and curls up, fighting the panic attack he can feel building inside him at the thought of what's going to happen to him now.

* * *

The Assistant fights when Yaxley questions him, but between the Bond's compulsion and the Cruciatus Curse, which is extremely effective at stripping away the willpower needed to fight the Bond, he's forced to tell where Snape, Sirius, and James are hiding, and then, when Voldemort's sent a dozen people to attack it, he's made to tell everything he's done for the past year. After that, Voldemort alternates between torturing him and Yaxley, which sends pain ricocheting down the bond to the Assistant as well, along with the anger and hatred Yaxley also feels. Though physically less painful than being tortured himself, the Assistant hates it more because every time Yaxley screams the Bond twists in the Assistant's chest, trying to get him to help his Master and ease his pain, but he can't and that's worse than being tortured himself.

* * *

"We need to leave."

"And go where, Snape?"

"Anywhere that isn't here, Potter. It's been half an hour. He's not—"

"Hey! Shut up, do you hear that?" Sirius interrupts and Snape falls silent, turning towards the front of the cave. The unmistakable sound of voices and footsteps sound outside and the three men glance at each other.

"Order Headquarters," Sirius hisses.

"What about me?" Draco demands. "Are you just going to leave me here? I can't Apparate."

"You'll be fine, Draco," Snape tells him, grabbing his bag while James shrinks and pockets Harry's trunk. "The Death Eaters won't hurt you; Lucius will kill them if they do. Let's go."

"I'm surprised it's empty," James says when the three arrive at Grimmauld Place and check for other visitors before moving through to the kitchen. "I'd have thought they'd have an emergency Order meeting with Dumbledore dead."

"Probably already have," Sirius replies. "We likely weren't invited."

"In either case they wouldn't have it here," Snape points out, dumping his bag on the table and going to the sink for some water. James frowns, pulling out Harry's shrunken trunk from his pocket and flicking his wand to put it back to its normal size.

"Why not?"

"Use your brain, Potter," Snape sneers. "With Dumbledore dead everyone who knows about this place becomes Secret Keeper. They're going to assume Harry will tell Voldemort about it; it's too dangerous to think otherwise. They won't be coming back here."

"But he's not loyal; he won't tell."

"They won't believe that, Prongs," Sirius says, dropping into a seat with a sigh. "He killed Dumbledore; they'd be stupid to believe Harry won't tell. They'll probably think even worse of him now they know you're not his dad. It's not like Snape was popular."

Snape lowers the glass of water he's drinking from. "Since when did they know about that?"

"I mentioned I wasn't his dad last night," James tells him. "I didn't say who was, but Minerva knows. They'll find out. We've got to rescue Harry."

"How?" Sirius asks morosely. "I hate to admit it but Snape's right—we can't storm Malfoy Manor. They got the Assistant and Harry; what hope do we have of getting in and getting either of them out?"

Snape sneers. "Is this the courage Gryffindors are so famed for?"

"Fuck you, Snape. You're the one that said we can't get in there."

"I said we couldn't go charging in. I'm familiar with the Manor, he spent fourteen years there, and with some information gathering and an actual plan, we might be able to get in."

"I spent fourteen years in the cellar, Snape. I don't know how you expect that to be any help."

"It's better than nothing."

"That means we can get in?" Sirius asks with a hint of hope back in his voice.

"It'll make it easier, but as I said, we're still going to need a plan."

* * *

Harry squints at the sudden light when the door is opened and presses himself back against the wall, but then he hears a familiar voice says quietly, "Harry?"

"Draco?"

" _Lumos_."

Light spills over Draco's face, but Harry doesn't move from his spot, eying him warily.

"Harry, I'm sorry," he whispers, stepping further into the room. "I didn't know that dragon was a portkey."

"It's not your fault. I should have listened to Dad. Did they catch him and Sirius and James?"

Draco shakes his head. "They got away before the Death Eaters reached us, left me behind for the Death Eaters to find."

"Did they hurt you?"

"No. My father was there."

Harry nods, glad. He hesitates to ask for help, wondering whether he should put Draco in the position of defying Voldemort, but he doesn't have any other options and he's scared of what's going to happen to him.

"Can you get me out?"

Draco hesitates.

" _Please_. Draco, you don't know what they'll do to me. This is going to be worse than last summer. You have to help me."

Draco steps forward. "I'll have to come with you. They'll know I helped; I'll have to go on the run as well."

"I'll protect you. We'll be fine as long as we're together, Draco. Just get me out of these chains."

"What about my mother? What if he hurts her as punishment?"

"I can get her out as well," Harry promises. He hesitates then adds, "I'll even get your father out if you want. I would probably have to shut him away somewhere so he doesn't go back to the Dark Lord, but I can keep them both safe, if you want."

Draco swallows, but nods and steps forward another step.

"Oh no you don't," says a voice from the main cellar. Draco spins, wand light shining onto Bellatrix's face. Harry scrambles forward, gritting his teeth against the pain in his foot as he half crawls and half lunges at Draco, reaching to snatch his wand from him, but purple light flies past Draco and slams into Harry's face. His entire perception turns upside down and he staggers, disorientated, and drops flat to the floor, trying to convince his mind that he's not on the ceiling and about to drop twelve feet at any second.

"Harry! Ow! No, get off me!"

Harry lifts his head, trying to ignore the dizzying sensations and looks at Draco in time to see him shoved to the floor of the main cellar. He closes his eyes, trying to drown out the feeling that he's the wrong way up, and drags himself forwards, but he hears the door slam shut before he reaches it.

"Draco! Draco, answer me! Don't hurt him, Lestrange! Don't you dare hurt him! DRACO!"

There's no response.

* * *

"I'm going to hunt down the Horcruxes."

Hermione blinks tiredly at Neville. Neither of them—nor many other students—have slept that night. "What?"

"I'm going to hunt down the Horcruxes. I might not be the child of the prophecy, but we can't trust that Harry's going to do it."

"But how? Where? You don't know where they are, do you?"

"No," he admits, "but I have to try."

"When?"

"Soon. After the summer, maybe right after my birthday."

Hermione straightens in her seat. "But what about school? It's our last year next year."

"You heard them talking, they might not even open the school next year. Even if they did, I don't know if I can come back. If Voldemort really thinks I'm the child of the prophecy, he's going to come after me and without Dumbledore I'd be a sitting duck here. Besides, the sooner the Horcruxes are found and destroyed, the better."

Hermione considers him, biting her lip, and then sighs. "You're right. We have to find them."

"We?"

"You're not going alone. You need me, Neville Longbottom, and don't you dare deny it. We've both been in this from the start and we'll both be in it until the end."


	90. Chapter 90

Snape ventures back to Spinner's End alone at the end of June to fetch any books he has on demons, but although at least some of the protections Harry put up are still in place and he stuns the Death Eater standing guard outside and takes down the jinxes he finds rigged to the door, he must miss something because he's there barely ten minutes when his upstairs windows smash and an explosion blasts through the house. He swears, grabs what few books he's already pulled down, and attempts to Apparate, only to find his route blocked. Swearing again and hearing another explosion upstairs, he draws his wand and starts to take down the Anti-Apparition Spells. The ceiling above his head splinters and smoke seeps through from behind the bookcase hiding the stairs, the crackle of flames from above him seeming extraordinarily loud. By the time he pulls down the spells down, the ceiling is threatening to buckle and he Apparates away just in time to avoid getting crushed by the second floor.

* * *

"Draco, won't you please come home?"

"I am home, Mother."

"You know what I mean," Narcissa snaps. "Come back to the Manor."

"Is Harry still there?"

Narcissa doesn't answer. Draco turns away, looking through the fruit in a bowl on the kitchen sideboard before picking out an apple. "I thought so."

He hears her footsteps against the tiled floor then her hand touches his arm, turning him towards her. "Draco, you're being ridiculous."

He jerks his arm away and steps back, expression angry. "Ridiculous?"

"Yes. You're throwing a childish tantrum over a boy."

"His name is Harry and I _love_ him, Mother. I'm not living in that house while he's locked up there."

"Your living here will not change that, Draco."

"No, but at least I don't have see the people who come to hurt him. I'm not blind, Mother, nor stupid. I know they don't just come for the Dark Lord—who, by the way, I don't want to live with either. I've seen the blood on Aunt Bella's hands. I've seen Mr Mulciber—I know what he is."

He can feel his eyes stinging with angry tears and a lump growing in his throat and he bites into the apple, chewing and swallowing to try and push it away. Narcissa says nothing, watching him with sad eyes.

"Go home, Mother," he says when he trusts himself not to start crying.

"I'm worried about you, Draco. It's not good for you to be shut in this flat all the time."

"I go out and you know it. Don't think I don't know why you said I had to live in this building or I would have to pay for it myself. I know I'm being watched; I've seen Earl Jugson and Preston Yaxley around. I'll bet there are others I don't recognise. You're probably getting daily reports on me."

"You've been out twice in three weeks," Narcissa says, not responding to the rest of his comment, "and only then for little more than an hour."

"I'm keeping my head down just like the Dark Lord ordered. It's you who'll die if he suspects I'm contacting Professor Snape or anyone else; do you think I want that?"

"Of course not, darling," she says with just a hint of reproachfulness that he would even suggest such a thing. "I simply worry about you. What are you doing with yourself all the time?"

"Studying."

Narcissa arches one perfectly plucked eyebrow. "In the summer."

"You know as well as I that if I want to get into Avicenna Healers' Institute then I need top grades."

"I really wish you'd come home, darling. You can study better there; I still have plenty of healers' manuals and journals."

Draco sighs angrily, annoyed now at her insistence. "I'm not going back to that house, Mother, not while Harry's there and not while the Dark Lord's there. Now please leave."

When Narcissa's left, Draco moves through to his sitting room, going to the fireplace and looking at the glass dragon sat on the mantelpiece with two wands. Lucius gave them to him the day he moved, saying the dragon was in Snape's empty coffin and thus clearly important to Harry so Draco should have it. Draco's suspicious of it, given that it was used to capture Harry in the first place, but he can't argue with the implication that it's important to Harry when he'd been so desperate to get it on the day he was captured.

He's not sure why he's been given Harry's wands—he's fairly certain the holly one is the same as the one that was snapped, or should have been snapped, when Harry was expelled, and he knows for sure the acacia one is his—but he'd rather have them himself than let Voldemort keep them, so he holds onto both wands with the hope that he'll one day be able to give them back to their owner.

* * *

Padfoot yelps. A moment later Snape swears violently. James sighs and covers his face with his arm. Three weeks they've been living in Grimmauld place. He and Snape have come to a tentative truce where they speak only when necessary and are vaguely polite about it, but Snape and Sirius utterly refuse to get along. They wind each other up and can't spend more than ten minutes in the same room without ending up in an argument. More than once they actually end up hexing each other or—as it sounds like now—physically attacking each other. James half expects Snape to poison Sirius' coffee one morning.

They've had a few visits from other Order members, but as Sirius said when they first arrived, almost no one believes that Harry won't reveal the secret of Grimmauld Place nor that he is now being held against his will. Sirius loses his temper at Mad-Eye Moody and says the Order can find somewhere else to work from, but as they plan to do that anyway the effect isn't quite as forceful. Tonks believes them, but she can't do much to help; she isn't high enough in the Ministry to convince anyone to conduct a raid on Malfoy Manor without due cause.

After a few days, they formulate a plan of their own to Polyjuice themselves into Death Eaters and sneak in that way. They take turns with James' Invisibility Cloak to hide near Malfoy Manor to see who comes and goes and James visits Diagon Alley for the required potion ingredients and a second cauldron to go with the one Snape takes from Harry's trunk—not only for Polyjuice but for Veritaserum as well. Reconnaissance doesn't tell them what kind of protections are on Harry or the activities of those inside the house, so they need to kidnap and interrogate one of the Death Eaters before they go in.

"I'm going to kill that bastard if he carries on like this."

James makes a vague noise that could be an agreement and doesn't move from his spot lounging on a sofa in the living room, listening to Sirius slam the door behind him and then start pacing.

"You could show a little more sympathy, Prongs, he trod on my tail."

"I'm sure he didn't mean to."

Sirius scoffs. "He meant to. He's leaving when we've got Harry back. I'm not having him here any longer than I have to."

James makes another vague noise. He doubts Harry will agree with tossing Snape out to fend for himself and he doesn't really like the idea either, but he knows there's no point arguing about it now.

"I'm going to do some reconnaissance. Be back later."

"Be careful."

"I'm always careful, Prongs."

* * *

"Have you told your gran yet?"

Neville nods and Hermione's worry eases a little when he smiles wryly. "I was so nervous when I told her I couldn't go back to Hogwarts; I thought she'd be completely against it, but when I said it was about defeating Voldemort... she understood, even though I wouldn't tell her what we're doing. I think she actually looked a little proud of me and she's going to make a believable imitation of me with spattergroit so that my absence from Hogwarts isn't suspicious."

Hermione smiles back at him. "That's great, Neville."

"Are you worried about your parents?"

Hermione's smile fades and she looks down at the books she's sorting, trying to decide what they need to take with them to hunt the Horcruxes. "They'll be safe in Australia."

"You'll see them again, Hermione. I'll make sure of it myself."

She just smiles sadly.

* * *

Harry never thought Riddle's cold hands would be a source of comfort, but when warm hands on his skin only mean pain, Riddle's icy touch is welcome—wanted, even, despite the persistent chill in the cellar. When Macnair leaves, Riddle lies down in front of Harry, mirroring his curled position, touching his forehead to Harry's and gently taking Harry's trembling hands in his own, bleeding where every one of his nails have been ripped out.

" _We'll get our revenge,_ " Riddle promises, his hissing voice as unexpectedly comforting as his coldness even if Harry can't believe the words. " _We will get out of this and we will hurt them as much as they've hurt us, and then some._ "

Harry says nothing and closes his eyes—for all the good it does. They've taken his magical eye, but even so the darkness is so absolute he can see almost nothing, and it's blinding whenever someone lights the torch on the wall. Revenge might be nice, he thinks, but mostly he just wants the pain to stop. What he suffered to convince him to join the Death Eaters had been only irritations, bug bites and paper cuts compared to the true agony that they inflict on him now.

* * *

"The Polyjuice is ready," Snape tells Sirius and James during dinner little less than two weeks into July. "The Veritaserum will be done in a few more days."

"About time," Sirius grumbles, twirling spaghetti around his fork. Snape scowls and opens his mouth to make some biting remark but James cuts him off.

"Who are we grabbing to interrogate?"

"Jugson, Macnair, and Mulciber are there most often," Sirius says. "They probably know the most."

"Mulciber," Snape says. "Jugson's an informer, he doesn't do anything pro-active; I wouldn't expect him to know that much of what's happening around Harry. Macnair's a brute and Lucius doesn't like him; he'll know the protections on Harry, but he won't be able to tell us much about what Lucius or the others do. Mulciber will, and his visits to the house are regular. He's the best option."

Sirius sighs and pushes his plate away from him. Thinking about why, exactly, Mulciber would know the details of Harry's imprisonment kills his appetite. "I'm going to be so fucking glad when we get him out of there."

* * *

Draco realises that the protections on the hidden room are enough that it would keep an owl from finding Harry, but he doesn't understand why the owl comes to his little flat instead of returning to the sender. It's a handsome tawny and the envelope has the Ministry's official seal with 'Department of Education' printed in small letters underneath. It's exactly the same as the envelope his OWL results came in and he's not surprised to open it and find the results of Harry's two NEWT exams inside—an O in History of Magic and an E in Ancient Runes. He thinks Harry might be disappointed by the E when he finds out.

And Draco believes he will. He refuses to even consider the possibility that Harry will remain locked in that room until he dies. He knows he can't do anything for Harry or the Dark Lord will kill his mother, but he has to hope that Harry will, somehow, get out alive and not too damaged.

He does spare some respect for the Department of Education's dedication to non-judgemental testing though. The _Daily Prophet_ is vilifying Harry daily for his murder of Dumbledore, and Draco's honestly surprised the Ministry even bothered to mark his exam.

* * *

"Where are we?"

"Glenmore Forest Park," Sirius answers James as they and Snape stand outside a small shack in the woods. "About seventy-five miles south of Hogsmeade. I stopped here one night when I was on the run."

He steps up to the door and pushes it open, the wood creaking loudly in the otherwise mostly silent forest. It's only small, an abandoned animal watching hut, but it's big enough for what they need. James transfigures a stick into a simple wooden chair and they put protection and Muggle-repellant spells around the area, then James and Sirius prepare to leave.

"Try not to fuck it up," Snape says just before the Disapparate.

Mulciber, they know, visits Malfoy Manor every Saturday evening. Sirius and James wait on the narrow lane in front of Malfoy Manor, hidden under the Invisibility Cloak just a hundred feet from the turning into the driveway leading up to the house, James crouched down beside Padfoot so they can both actually fit under the cloak. Padfoot hears Mulciber's footsteps first and huffs quietly, nudging James with his nose. James clutches his wand, eyes fixed on the turning of the driveway, heart racing as he waits for Mulciber to appear and then, when he does, waiting for him get closer. When he's just a few feet from them and slowing in preparation to Apparate away, James pokes the tip of his wand from the cloak and whispers, " _Stupefy_."

A bolt of red light flies into Mulciber, who doesn't even get a chance to look surprised. He crumples to the ground and James flits out from under the cloak, grabs him, and Disapparates. Padfoot turns into Sirius and goes after him just moments later.

"Harry's scent is all over him," Sirius says in disgust as James ties Mulciber to the chair in the shack then tilts his head back and opens his mouth so Snape can pour three drops of Veritaserum into his mouth. James casts _Rennervate_ and the three of them watch as Mulciber wakes and looks at them with a flat, unfocused gaze.

"What's your name?" Snape asks.

"Merrick Mulciber," Mulciber answers in an emotionless voice.

"Do you know who I am?"

"Severus Snape. Traitor to the Dark Lord."

Snape's lip curls slightly. "Tell me where Harry Evans is."

"Malfoy Manor, in Lucius' hidden room in the cellar."

"Is he chained? What protections have been put in place around him? Is he under guard?"

Mulciber tells them everything—that there's no guard on the cellar door, but it is charmed to only open from the outside; that the main cellar has a handful of protection spells on it and magic suppression runes on the walls in the event Harry manages to escape the hidden room and his shackles, although there are no runes in the hidden room itself so spells can still be used on Harry; that the Manor is spelled against Apparition in or out; and that Lucius, Narcissa, Bellatrix, and Voldemort are the only ones living there permanently now that Draco has moved out of the Manor and is living alone in a flat in London.

"We could take Draco."

"It won't work, Black. Why are you so set on using that boy as a hostage?"

"You think Lucius won't want his son back? That _Narcissa_ won't?"

"It doesn't matter what they want. The Dark Lord will never allow them to give us Harry in exchange for Draco. Draco is worthless to him; he would let him die and take steps to make sure Lucius and Narcissa do nothing either. All of that's irrelevant anyway because they know we wouldn't harm Draco."

"Maybe you wouldn't. I'll do whatever I have to to get Harry back."

"Harry would hate us if we hurt Draco, Padfoot."

"I can handle him hating me, Prongs, just as long as he's free while he does it."

"We can snatch some of Draco's hair to use for Polyjuice, but the house residents are who we need to concern ourselves with," Snape says. "It would be suicidal to try taking him while the Dark Lord's there."

"So we have to keep a permanent watch and enact a plan the moment he leaves," James sighs. "That could make things difficult. More difficult."

"We'll need to take out my cousins and Lucius as well," Sirius points out. "They'll stop us or slow us down at least if we have to fight them. Whichever of us is Polyjuiced as Mulciber could stun them; they won't be expecting an attack from him."

James shakes his head. "That won't work on Lucius and Narcissa, Padfoot. The Manor has ancient spells woven into it to protect Malfoys from attackers inside the Manor. Anyone not of Malfoy blood who attacks someone who is of Malfoy blood will get inflicted by the same harm they cause. You stun them, you'll get stunned as well, unless the head of the household has added you to the wards, which is normally only done for spouses and adopted children, and probably the Dark Lord. I was locked up there for fourteen years," he adds when the other two stare at him. "I learned things."

"Great," Sirius sighs. "So how do we take them out?"

"There are a couple loopholes we could exploit," James says. "The spells only react when someone of Malfoy blood is _harmed_ , and even then only by magic, which means I'm pretty sure you could use something like the Imperius and you'd be fine, and I _know_ you can hit them over the head and not suffer retaliation."

"That sounds good. I like the idea of sneaking up on Malfoy and smacking him over the head, maybe with a fire poker," Sirius says with a grin. "Bellatrix, too. We don't know that she hasn't been added to the wards at the Voldemort's command and we shouldn't risk it. Hang on," he adds, frowning suddenly and turning to Mulciber, who still stares blankly in front of him as though he's barely even aware they're there. "Where's the Assistant? What's happened to him?"

"He was given to Preston Yaxley for punishment." Mulciber answers. "He's being held in Preston's apartment and used as the slave he is. I've had a couple of goes with him myself."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Preston's let me fuck him. He can make himself look like anyone, including women," he says with a leering grin, the first sign of emotion since taking the Veritaserum.

"We should probably rescue him too," James says.

"Harry first."

"The Assistant would be easier," Snape counters, "and can help us get Harry. He has Malfoy blood so he can hurt Lucius and Narcissa."

"I think Snape's right," James says to Sirius. "The Assistant can help us, Padfoot."

"So what, we're supposed to put off helping Harry for longer?" Sirius asks angrily. "The longer we leave it the more chance he'll end up dead!"

"We're not deciding anything here," Snape says, turning to Mulciber. "We'll deal with him and leave."

"I'll do the Memory Charm," James says, raising his wand, but Snape grabs his wrist.

"Hang on." He draws a small vial from his pocket that's filled with a murky, dark green liquid. He grabs Mulciber's chin and pours all of it into his mouth.

"What's that?"

"Poison," Snape says. "Slow acting, undetectable, and almost incurable. It'll rot his organs from the inside out over the course of three months and only a specific antidote can stop it, and it has to be administered within the first month of being poisoned. Without it, healers will only be able to delay the effects, and pain relievers won't do much to help by the third month, I don't think."

"And how common is this antidote?" Sirius asks.

"You're looking at the only person who knows how to make it."

Sirius looks reluctantly impressed.

They memory charm Mulciber and dump him back outside Malfoy Manor then return to Grimmauld Place to discuss plans.


	91. Chapter 91

"Are you expecting guests?"

Draco frowns, putting down his cup and rising from his armchair with a shake of his head at his mother's question. He peers through the peephole on the door but can see no one on the other side and when he opens it to look down the hall, it's empty.

"Who is it, darling?"

"No one. Someone ginger knocking, I exp-"

A bolt of red light appears from the space just a foot in front of him, the proximity making him stagger back even as the spell knocks him unconscious. Narcissa rises from the sofa, going for her wand, but doesn't get chance to defend herself from a second Stunning Spell.

Snape shoves Draco's legs aside and hurriedly shuts the flat door before pulling off the Invisibility Cloak. He levitates Draco onto the sofa and straightens Narcissa then ties them both up and puts their wands on the coffee table by their teacups. He takes a corked test tube from his pocket and pulls a few hairs from Draco's head to add to the Polyjuice inside, shaking it gently as he takes a few hairs from Narcissa as well, just for the unlikely event he might ever need them, before he slips the Invisibility Cloak back on and Disapparates.

* * *

"You're insatiable," Yaxley says when he opens his front door and finds James Polyjuiced as Mulciber standing outside, but he steps aside and gestures for the other man to come in. "Make it a quickie; I've got people coming at eight."

"Thanks," James mutters, glancing around the sitting room, noting the files spread across the coffee table. Yaxley leads him to one of three other doors and opens it into a bedroom, moving straight over to the wardrobe and opening the doors to show a dog cage on the floor. The Assistant sits inside it, hair brown and eyes green, hunched over to fit and naked except for a leather dog collar around his throat. He says nothing and watches with loathing in his eyes as Yaxley taps his wand to the cage to open it and orders him out.

"Harry, you're to do whatever Merrick Mulciber tells you to for the next half an hour," Yaxley orders then adds to James, "Enjoy him."

James draws his wand as Yaxley turns to go and silently casts a Stunning Spell on him, sending the taller man crumpling to the floor unconscious. The Assistant watches him fall then looks at James.

"That won't help, you know."

"I'm not Mulciber."

The Assistant smiles. "Yeah, if I didn't already know by your scent, attacking my Master would have been a giveaway. Who are you?"

"James Potter. I'm getting you out."

The Assistant shakes his head. "I can't do magic without his express permission," he says, gesturing to Yaxley. "And I mean at all—he figured out my Trigger and he uses it liberally. I can't help you free Harry, which is what I assume you want me for."

"Yes," James admits. "But even so, I can get you out."

"There's no point. He can find me anywhere and without magic I can't fight him. He'll just drag me back then do very unpleasant things to me as punishment, so there's no point in me leaving. But I appreciate the gesture."

"I can put him under the Imperius," James starts to suggest, but the Assistant shakes his head again.

"He's Master of an Animancupium bond; that makes him naturally resistant just like it makes us naturally unable to fight it."

"We can't?"

"Yeah, sorry. Thanks for the help and all, but just wipe his memory and go. Good luck saving Harry."

* * *

Padfoot is hiding in the bushes opposite Malfoy Manor when James appears, still disguised as Mulciber

"Sirius?"

He squirms out from under the bush, looking up and down the street before turning back into Sirius. A few feet away, Snape's head appears from thin air as he pushes back the hood of the Invisibility Cloak.

"Where's the Assistant?" Sirius asks James, who quickly explains what happened at Yaxley's apartment.

"He _wanted_ to stay?"

"Never mind that," Snape snaps. "Is the Dark Lord still out?"

"Yes."

"We should move quickly then. Here."

Snape draws out the corked test tube of Polyjuice, now a dark green, and hands it to Sirius, who drinks it down in one go. James and Snape watch his body shift into that of Draco's then Sirius casts a Shrinking Charm on his robes to make them fit better to his new size and Snape pulls his hood back up.

"Let's go."

They get through the gate without trouble and pause just inside the Manor's front door, glancing around at the portraits hanging on the walls.

"Lucius is probably in the study," Snape murmurs. "Narcissa was at Draco's flat, but I don't know where Bellatrix might be."

"Then we head to the study," James says, starting down the hall.

Lucius looks obviously surprised to see his son and more surprised to see him with Merrick Mulciber.

"Mulciber," he greets coldly, getting to his feet. "Might I ask what you're doing here with my son?"

"We met outside, Father," Sirius answers for James. "He wanted to see you."

Lucius glances at James then back to Sirius. "Where's your mother, Draco? Did she come home with you?"

"She went to visit a friend," Sirius lies, noticing Snape's hand slip out from under the cloak behind Lucius and slide a heavy book off the shelf. "She said she'd be home later. I just wanted to fetch a few things from my room."

Lucius opens his mouth to respond only for Snape to slam the book down on the back of his head at that moment. Lucius staggers and falls across the desk, but doesn't lose consciousness. It's enough for James to draw his wand and conjure ropes to bind him, then Snape grabs him and shoves him back into his chair, Sirius casts a Sticking Spell and a Silencing Charm, and Lucius glares at them.

"Enjoy your punishment when Voldemort finds you failed in your duty," Snape sneers, then pulls the cloak back over himself and the three of them hurry out the room, pausing just long enough to put up a Locking Charm on the door behind them.

"What about Bellatrix?" James asks.

"We don't have time to search for her," Snape answers curtly. "Your Polyjuice will be wearing off soon. You'll have to wait outside the cellar and keep an eye out for her."

"Why me? You have the cloak."

"Because you'll only scare Harry," Snape snaps. "You look like someone who's tortured him; we don't."

* * *

Harry screams. He's on his front, chains charmed to the floor, Bellatrix sat on his thighs to keep him still while she holds his foot up and draws her wand across the sole, burning the skin as she goes. She looks up when the door opens, but never gets a chance to speak before Snape throws off the cloak and snarls, " _Crucio!_ "

Bellatrix shrieks and drops the wand as her body spasms and Sirius hurries forwards to crouch by Harry. Snape ends the curse on Bellatrix and stuns her instead, only then sparing a thought to be thankful that Bellatrix isn't included in the protection spells on the Manor, and turns his attention to Harry and Sirius.

"He's passed out, I'm going to have to carry him," Sirius says, undoing his cloak and gently laying it over Harry. "He's not walking with his feet like that even if he was conscious. _Relashio!_ "

The chains clink and fall away from Harry's wrists and a blast of wind blows through the room and the torch on the wall flares, the only outlet Harry's magic finds after a month of being suppressed. That done, Sirius slips his arms under Harry's back and legs and lifts him off the floor.

"Let's go."

Snape doesn't. He goes to Bellatrix, taking her wand from her then backing up and casting Rennervate. Bellatrix opens her eyes, sees Snape and starts to rise, but Snape holds up her wand and she stops.

"You'll never get away with this, traitor. I'll see you dead! For good this time!"

"No," he says calmly, "you won't. This is for Harry. _Avada Kedavra!_ "

Green light fills the room and slams into Bellatrix. Her body jerks from the force and then falls still. Snape tosses her wand down, slings the Invisibility Cloak over his shoulders, and stalks out the room.

"Go."

* * *

Voldemort, wearing the Assistant's rune-covered cloak, walks through the gate just as they reach the bottom of the steps outside the front door. James' Polyjuice wears off and he's in front, Sirius carrying Harry behind him, while Snape brings up the rear still under the Cloak, but all three of them stop when they see Voldemort, who also freezes, startled at seeing James Potter with Draco Malfoy carrying Harry Evans.

Voldemort recovers first, snarling and flinging a spell at James, who staggers back, jerking his wand and yelling a Shield Spell, but Voldemort's curse rips through it. James stumbles, eyes going wide, dropping to his hands and knees and coughing up blood while more drips from his eyes, ears, and nose.

Sirius, unwilling to let go of Harry, backs up a steps, looking around like he thinks he can run, but he forgets the stairs are behind him and he trips, falling back and hitting the steps hard, barely keeping hold of Harry. Voldemort stalks forward, face furious, wand fixed on Sirius, and then has to abruptly leap aside when a jet of green flies over Sirius and Harry.

"Show yourself, Black!" Voldemort yells, eyes flicking around. "Or are you so cowardly you'll let your friend bleed to death while you fight me from under his cloak?"

Snape carefully edges down the steps, not wanting the cloak to slip and reveal him. His heart races; he knows they've got no hope of getting by Voldemort. He knows he can't defeat Voldemort, even if Sirius gets his wand out and fights as well, but he's got to get Harry out somehow.

And then Yaxley and the real Mulciber come running through the gate, complicating things even more as Voldemort yells at them to take Harry inside. Mulciber steps towards Sirius and Harry, and Snape forgets about stealth and thrusts his wand out.

" _Sectumsempra!_ "

Mulciber staggers and collapses to the ground, blood splurting from his arm as the curse cuts across his bicep. Voldemort whirls on Snape, who dodges a curse, the hood of the cloak falling back to reveal his head. He dodges a second curse, ducking to the ground and grabbing a pebble as he does, an idea coming to him.

"Aren't you going to fight me, Severus?" Voldemort sneers as Snape continues to dodge his hexes, only a throwing curse himself when Mulciber tries to start towards Harry again. Sirius has got his own wand out and is standing over Harry's still unconscious form, fighting off Yaxley. James remains on the ground, pale, bleeding, and on the brink of passing out.

Snape turns his wand on the pebble he picked up and mutters, " _Portus_." It glows blue and trembles in his hand for a moment then goes still and he focuses his attention on Harry. He has only thirty seconds before it activates.

He ducks a curse from Voldemort then hurls one back. He doesn't expect it to hit, but he needs to at least keep Voldemort's attention fixed on him, so he throws spell after spell, jinxes and curses that he can hurl without taxing himself, and steadily moves towards Harry and Sirius as he does. He reaches them with less than ten seconds left, crouches and goes to grab Harry's hand, then Mulciber hits him with a spell that throws him into Sirius, sending both of them tumbling to the ground. Snape scrambles up, clenching his teeth against pain lancing through his guts, and reaches towards Harry, uncaring of the jet of green light flying towards him from Voldemort's wand, and the portkey activates, jerking at his navel and making the world spin around him.

He reappears on the floor of Grimmauld Place's front hall, alone, and screams with despair.

* * *

"So," Voldemort says in a dangerous voice, turning on Sirius after Snape vanishes, "despite my orders, despite the threat on your mother, you still went against me, Draco."

"I'm not Draco," Sirius says, silently urging Harry to wake up. His wand fell from his hand when Snape knocked into him and Yaxley has snatched it up, but if Harry wakes then they'll be fine. He doesn't glance at James, either. He knows he's still alive—he can hear him coughing and breathing wetly—but he doesn't know how long for.

Voldemort's eyes narrow. "Then who are you?"

"Bite me, snake-face."

It's the wrong thing to say.

" _Crucio!_ "

When it passes, he sees Voldemort nudge Harry and order Mulciber, "Take him inside. Preston, deal with Mr Potter. I would prefer he lived; I may yet have use for him."

"Stay the fuck away from my godson," Sirius rasps, pushing himself up and reaching for Harry, only for Voldemort to flick his wand and toss him away. Mulciber bends, grunting with pain but ungraciously hauling Harry up over his shoulder anyway, dripping blood as he heads inside. Yaxley casts the counter curse on James and then stuns him and levitates him after Mulciber. Voldemort goes over to Sirius, who glares up at him.

"You will die tonight, Sirius Black."

* * *

Snape stays in Grimmauld Place only long enough to use the counter curse that unties his guts from the twisted mess Mulciber's spell knotted them in, then packs the cauldrons, vials of Veritaserum and Polyjuice, and various potion ingredients into Harry's trunk and takes it. He knows the house isn't safe anymore, not with Sirius caught. James, he thinks, is probably dead now. There are a few Order safe houses that he knows of and if he's not welcome there then... he'll figure something out.

* * *

Sirius gasps painfully when Lucius does the ritual to transfer James' Bond back to him, feeling like someone's torn a piece out of his chest. He's never been as aware of the Bond as James, but now it's gone he definitely misses it. Across from him James jerks his head away from Lucius' hand as it reaches to pet his hair, but Lucius murmurs something too quiet for Sirius to hear and James shudders and when Lucius touches him again, he twitches but doesn't jerk away.

* * *

Harry wishes he'd pass out again. His feet are throbbing from the burns Bellatrix inflicted and Riddle's cold hands do nothing to help. Not for the first time he can hear screams from somewhere else in the house. He hopes it's not Draco. He thinks he saw him—Riddle assures him they did—but his memories are so hazy and he's in so much pain that he's really not sure. He thinks that even if he did, it probably wasn't real, just another hallucination like Riddle, only it hadn't stuck around. He wouldn't be surprised. He knows his sanity is slipping further and he wishes he'd just lose it completely. It might be alright then. If he was completely insane, he might not be aware of the pain so much. He might not care.

He flinches when the door opens, but doesn't have the energy to do more than that. Even the dim light of the main cellar seems bright to him and he squints at Voldemort, silhouetted in the door, then Voldemort steps aside, flicks his wand to light the torch on the wall, and someone's shoved inside, and Harry thinks he's finally cracked.

"Hey, kid," Sirius says hoarsely, pushing himself up on shaking arms to crawl forward. Harry cringes away from him instinctively. "Hey, I'm not going to hurt you."

"Why are you here?" Harry asks because he's not sure what else to say and it seems like a reasonable question if Sirius is actually real.

"Came to rescue you, but there was a slight hitch in the plan."

"You came to get me out?"

"Yeah, me and James and Snape. Sorry we didn't manage it, kid."

Harry reaches a shaking hand out to him and Sirius puts his own in it, fingers wrapping gently around it.

"Are you r-real?" Harry asks, voice cracking on the last word.

Sirius shifts closer, squeezing his hand gently and reaching with his other to stroke Harry's hair, which is matted with old, dried blood. "Of course I'm real."

"Please get me out."

Sirius swallows past the lump in his throat and bends over Harry. "Snape will," he murmurs. "He's going to come back and get you out, alright? He's your dad. He'll come back for you."

Voldemort flicks his wand and invisible hands grab Sirius and haul him back. Harry cries out, reaching for him, and Sirius swears, struggling even as he's manhandled back. Voldemort moves forward, crouching and grabbing Harry by the hair, lifting him up slightly and forcing his head to look towards Sirius. By the door, Lucius has James on his knees, watching.

"Say goodbye to your godfather," Voldemort sneers, pointing his wand at Sirius. " _Avada Kedavra!_ "

"SIRIUS!"

The hand leaves his hair and he crawls over to Sirius, the pain in his body seeming to fade for the first time since he was there as he reaches the limp body, grabbing the front of his robes with both hands and shaking him.

"Sirius? Sirius, no, c'mon. Please, Sirius, c'mon just... Sirius, _please..._ "

"Lucius, take out the body but don't destroy or bury it. I want it found."

"Yes, my lord. Precious, pick him up."

James' hands shake and tears spill down his cheeks as he moves forwards and grabs Sirius. "Harry, let go."

Harry shakes his head, hands still clutching Sirius' robe. "It's not real. It's not real, he's just a hallucination. He's not real."

"Harry, please, let go."

"Make him," Lucius orders.

"I'm sorry," James whispers, taking Harry's hand and lifting them from the robes. It's not hard when Harry's grip is so weak, but Harry still fights him. James lifts Sirius' body, one arm under his back, the other under his legs, and gets to his feet. He leaves the room before Lucius, and Harry's desperately repetitive litany seems to follow him all the way up to the drawing room.

"It's not real, it's not real, it's not real."


	92. Chapter 92

"I hate you."

"I know."

James lashes out, smacking Lucius across the face. Lucius takes it but grabs his wrists when he tries again.

"Don't ever hit me, James."

"Fuck you! Fuck you, you filthy shitting piece of Death Eater crap!"

"Sit down and shut up!" Lucius snaps, and James jerks his hands free and drops into the armchair in the corner of the room, folding his arms over his chest and glaring at Lucius. Lucius turns away from him, taking both his and James' wands from his pocket and laying them beside the bed then unbuttoning his robe and shrugging it off. He takes it through to the en suite bathroom and dumps it in the laundry basket then comes out, unbuttoning the top of his shirt and looking over James. His expression softens slightly and he gives a small sigh, going to him.

"Come now, precious, don't look at me like that."

James flicks his gaze to the floor but the glare remains. He doesn't react when Lucius brushes his fingers through the messy hair other than for his fingers to twitch like he wants to knock the hand away.

"I will have to reteach you some manners," Lucius murmurs and James stiffens. Lucius' hand moves down to his neck and he tugs down the collar of his robe, mouth tightening as he looks at the jagged scar over the words carved into his skin. "And remind you of to whom it is you belong."

His thumb brushes along the scar and James shudders.

* * *

All the Order safe houses that Snape knows of are in use and no one at any of them is willing to let him join them or tell him about any others. Dumbledore was always the one to vouch for him and now with him dead no one is willing to trust him. It takes substantial amounts of effort not to hex every Order member that looks at him like he's trash.

He tries going to Black Stag House in Coleford, but there are monitoring spells up on it. The Ministry looking for Harry, no doubt, and he's left with no choice but to find empty Muggle houses, preferring places up for sale but not above breaking into unoccupied homes for a night or two.

He kidnaps Mulciber again to find out if Voldemort has moved Harry since the rescue attempt or changed the security measures, and isn't happy to discover the extra protections put on the cellar, which include making the chains on Harry's wrists Magic Locked by Lucius and that Lucius is now confined to the Manor. Snape memory charms him again, furiously erasing the man's entire memory and leaving him in the middle of the Norfolk fens with no idea of who he is.

* * *

"Have you buggered him?"

"Narcissa, that's hardly an appropriate question for a lady to ask."

"Have. You. Buggered. Him?"

"No."

"I swear to Merlin, Lucius, if you're lying to me I will make sure you never put your dick in anyone ever again."

Lucius pales but says unwaveringly, "I never bedded him."

"Have you engaged in any sexual activity with him?"

"No."

Narcissa stares at him hard, searching for any signs that he's lying. She finds none, but she honestly doesn't know whether she believes it anyway. Despite keeping James a secret from her for so long, she doesn't like to think he would tell her such a direct lie as this, but then there are a lot of things she doesn't like to think he would do and yet knows he does.

"I realise I have as little choice about having him in my house as I do about the child, but you will keep him in that guest room unless the Dark Lord asks for him. I do not want to see him and I do not want to see you any more than I have to, either."

"Narcissa—"

"I don't want to hear anything more from you, Lucius. You have your _pet_ back. I hope you enjoy him."

Lucius watches her storm away then turns and enters his room again, stalking across the room to grab James by the front of his robe and jab his wand into the man's throat. "This is your fault. You ruined my marriage."

"I'm not the one who lied to your wife," James spits, a spark of satisfaction in his eyes. "You brought this on yourself."

Lucius snarls a curse and James screams, body writhing out of Lucius' grip as his nerves burn and pain stabs through every inch of him, but Lucius doesn't hold it for long. Hearing him scream doesn't change the fact that Lucius knows James is right.

* * *

On his birthday, Harry makes an escape attempt. He manages to wrangle a knife from Walden Macnair and stab him in the eye with it then steals his wand and staggers out the door that hasn't been shut properly. He doesn't get far. His legs give out on him halfway across the cellar and he tries to crawl, but he doesn't get much further than the hallway beyond before he's found and dragged back into the hidden room kicking and screaming, failing to make any spells hit his attackers before the wand is easily taken from him. Voldemort orders him collared and the collar chained to the back wall, leaving him unable to get even halfway towards the door. Macnair lives and gets payback by carving out Harry's right eye, leaving him completely blind and even more terrified of the people that come to him. It worse when he can't see it.

* * *

Minister Rufus Scrimgeour is killed a day later and the Death Eaters take over the Ministry. The moment news reaches the Longbottom house, Neville's gran tells him and Hermione to go and wishes them luck. It's no longer safe for them to stay.

* * *

With Polyjuice using hairs pinched from a random Muggle on the street, Snape visits a bookshop in Knockturn Alley and searches for everything they have on demons and demon deals, flicking through books until the shopkeeper starts glaring at him and fingering her wand then he buys the one that look most promising, using money taken from Harry's trunk. It takes all afternoon and most of the night to read and he snaps it shut eventually in annoyance. It's no more informative than what he took from his own home. He curses Harry for making the bloody thing and for not telling him, and curses himself for leaving him in the place that drove him to do it in the first place.

* * *

In the last week of August, James is Marked. A tiny part of him marvels at how quickly and easily he slipped back into being Lucius' obedient little lapdog, but he supposes those two years away from him—and only one without the Bond to him—really didn't do much to counteract fourteen years of mental conditioning. It doesn't stop him feeling awful about having to kill Sam, his psychiatrist, as part of his initiation. His hand shakes when he raises his wand and he glances at Lucius, sees a promise of pain in the cold grey eyes if he fails, and hates himself as he casts a curse that slits the woman's throat, unable to conjure enough hatred to cast the Killing Curse. Later, he kneels in front of Lucius and cries, hating himself more for taking comfort from Lucius' hands in his hair and his soft voice murmuring words of praise.

* * *

The _Daily Prophet_ on the first of September reports James Potter as the new Hogwarts Headmaster—and the even more shocking news that he is not father to the Boy Who Lived.

* * *

Neville and Hermione feel bad about searching the ruined house at Godric's Hollow, but they both agree it's somewhere Voldemort may have hidden a Horcrux. If it is, they don't find it.

"We have no idea what we're doing, do we?"

Neville doesn't look up from his hands, just sighs and shakes his head morosely, sat beside her on one of the beds in their tent. "I'm sorry, Hermione."

"Sorry?"

"For dragging you along on this wild goose chase. For having to spend your birthday in a tent in the middle of nowhere."

"Firstly, you didn't drag me into anything. I insisted, remember? Secondly, if you hadn't I'd only be on my own."

He looks up at that, confused. "Why?"

"The Muggleborn Registration Committee," she reminds him. "I wouldn't have registered myself on that awful thing, so they'd be hunting me down anyway. I'd much rather be hiding with you on my birthday than on my own, and I'm pretty sure you'd rather I be with you than hunting Horcruxes alone."

"Of course I do!" Neville cries, looking offended at the bare suggestion otherwise and Hermione smiles lightly.

"Well then, no apologies necessary," she says, but her smile fades and she sighs. "I just wish we had a better idea of what we were doing and where to look."

"We'll figure it out," Neville says with forced hope and leans over to kiss her cheek, only for Hermione to turn her head and make their lips meet instead, lifting her arms to wrap around his neck and deepening the kiss, taking the opportunity to think about something other than Horcruxes, camping, and running from the Snatchers.

* * *

The Assistant whines against the gag in his mouth, wishing he could move even an inch, but he's securely held in place by the ropes around his wrists and ankles and held motionless by an Impedimenta Jinx. He's unable to keep the tears spilling from his eyes as Yaxley carves into his flesh with a silver knife, though. The pain is excruciating, almost bad enough to make him wish for the Cruciatus instead. That, at least, would be so overwhelming as to consume his thoughts. The knife crawling along his skin doesn't do that, doesn't manage to distract him from the feel of his magic being slowly and surely suppressed.

When it's done Yaxley climbs on top of him, grabbing his chin in hand and looking down at him with an expression of mixed satisfaction and disgust.

"Look at me."

The Assistant opens his eyes, tears sliding down his temples, in too much pain to even manage a weak glare at the man. He's still bleeding, can feel it dripping over his ribs, down his arms, around his thighs and calves, along the soles of his feet, over his cheeks, creeping down his pelvis, and sticking to the sheets under him. Yaxley was thorough, carving the runes into every part of him with agonisingly slow and precise strokes of the knife.

"In a moment I will untie you. When I do, you will get up, dress, and get out of my flat, Harry. You will never come back here unless I specifically request it. You will not alter these injuries and you will not allow anyone else to alter them. You will not do anything that might in any way cause them to be changed and rendered useless. You will not kill yourself, have anyone else kill you, or do anything that has a high chance of resulting in your death. You will live for the rest of this timeline. You will not exploit any loopholes in these orders, Harry, and you will not fight them."

Yaxley gets off him, takes his wand from the side table, and murmurs a spell. The ropes vanish, the Assistant sits up, trembling as he shifts to swing his legs over the edge of the bed, wincing as he stands, and then he punches Yaxley. It's a weak shot and barely grazes Yaxley's jaw, and it makes the Assistant stagger and fall to one knee. Yaxley grabs the collar still wrapped around his throat and shoves him towards the chair, over which a robe sits waiting, a pair of trainers on the floor underneath.

"I've given you your orders, Harry. Obey them."

He struggles to his feet and grimaces as he pulls on the robe and shoes then limps out the door, but he pauses in the living room. There's a teenager on the sofa, a boy of about fourteen sleeping soundly, and the Assistant's gut tightens.

"The exit's that way," Yaxley says, shoving him from behind.

"What are you doing with that boy? Who is he?" the Assistant asks even as his feet take him to the front door against his will.

"That's none of your concern. Get out."

"Where am I supposed to go?" he asks as he leaves. There's more than a hint of desperation in his voice and he hates it, but he can't help it. He's powerless and being thrown out on the streets and he doesn't know what he's supposed to do because this has never happened before.

"I really don't care," Yaxley tells him, and slams the door in his face.

* * *

Snape uses Polyjuice again and more of Harry's money to buy a variety of healing and health potions from Diagon and Knockturn Alley, trying to convince himself that he'll need them when he finally gets Harry out, but it does little to assuage his guilt, anger, and growing despair at failing to figure out a way to free Harry from Malfoy Manor. Even the death notice in the tenth of October's _Daily Prophet_ about Merrick Mulciber doesn't manage to elicit so much as a shred of smug pleasure.

* * *

Draco knows what he's doing is stupid and dangerous. He knows the chances of it working are unbelievably slim. He knows that doing it puts him, his mother, and his father in danger. But he has to. He needs to do something. He can't stand the constant sick feeling in his stomach anymore.

The Metalacid is easy to brew. The Invisibility Invigoration isn't and he neglects his studies to perfect it. His dropping grades would bother him, but he knows it won't matter after the first Hogsmeade weekend of the year. One way or another, he won't be coming back. He knows he's losing his chance of ever becoming a healer and it saddens him slightly, but he's got money—especially after inheriting Bellatrix's vault—and he decides this is more than worth it.

He slips away from Crabbe and Goyle in Honeydukes and checks his pockets for the fiftieth time that morning as he slips off the High Street and then into a little alley behind Scrivenshaft's Quill Shop. He glances around nervously as he drinks down one of the two vials of Invisibility Invigoration and conjures a small mirror just to check himself then closes his eyes, forcing himself to calm down and focus. It won't be any good if he messes this whole thing up right at the start by splinching himself. He failed the test twice before eventually passing and he'd much prefer flying, but that's not an option right now. So he thinks furiously about the Manor, imagining it clearly in his mind, and Disapparates.

He reappears in his bedroom all in one piece and gives a shaky sigh of relief as he looks around the empty room that, despite being unoccupied for months now, still contains his bed, his curtains, his few remaining belongings that he'd never taken to the flat—all left by his mother, he knows, in the hope he'd come back.

As he leaves the room, after checking again that he's still invisible, a hysterical bubble of laughter crawls up inside him and he has to clap his hands over his mouth to keep it contained. What's he thinking? This is a suicide mission. It's doomed to fail. Sirius, James, and Snape hadn't managed it and they had three of them, full grown wizards with years of experience in spells and Snape with practice in subterfuge and knowledge of the Death Eaters and how they worked... and what was he? A seventeen year old boy who hasn't even finished his schooling, alone, afraid, and risking his entire family for the sake of one boy.

One boy he loves, who loves him, who had said he trusted Draco in ways he trusted no one else. One boy he knows would do the same for him.

He's glad he doesn't see his mother as he heads down to the cellar. He thinks his determination would probably waver if he did; Voldemort has promised he'd kill Narcissa if Draco went against him and tried to help Harry. But he has a plan to get her out if it succeeds and if it doesn't... he refuses to think about it.

The cellar door opens easily at his touch and he enters with his heart in his throat and a Stunning Spell on the tip of his tongue, hoping and praying that Voldemort isn't in the cellar with Harry. He thinks he can handle a Death Eater or two, but he knows better than to even think he could go up against Voldemort, even invisible and sneaking up on him. But, thankfully, the only one in the room is Harry.

Draco knows that Harry's going to be injured and he braces himself for it, but there's nothing that can prepare him for the sight of Harry curled on the floor, naked, bruised, and bloody. His bony wrists are locked in shackles and a heavy-looking metal collar is wrapped around his neck and chained to the wall. He's so skinny Draco wonders how he can still be alive, every rib visible, hip bones jutting out, face sunken and gaunt. His eyes are gone; the left lid sags over an empty socket and the right is a mutilated mess, with a long scar running down his face underneath it. His skin is a mess of burns and bruises, old scars and new cuts. His right foot sits at a weird angle and the soles of his feet are lined with old burns. The sight of him makes bile rise in Draco's throat and he has to turn away, breathing hard through his nose and trying not to throw up.

He forces himself to turn back, hurrying to crouch by Harry and taking the Metalacid from his pocket.

"It's alright," he whispers as he fumbles the cork from the vial. "It's Draco. I'm going to get you out of here, Harry. You'll be alright."

He's not sure Harry hears him. There's no response and he's not even sure Harry's conscious until he gently touches his head and Harry lets out a tiny whimper. He's freezing cold.

"I'm sorry. It's going to be okay though. I'm getting you out."

He carefully tilts Harry's head up and slowly pours the potion over the collar. It's designed to eat through all metals while not damaging anything else, so it eats through the collar but when it touches Harry's flesh it simply slides over him as harmlessly as water. Draco watches it, impatient and nervous, and when the collar has disintegrated to nothing, he shifts to the cuffs—and that's when the door creaks open. He drops the potion, swears as it spills over the floor but nowhere near Harry's cuffs, and too late realises his mistake. The curse reveals his location and before he can think to defend himself Voldemort's pointing his wand and with a bang ropes appear and bind themselves around him.

"Identify yourself," Voldemort says coldly, "or you can be identified when they find your mutilated corpse."

He says nothing. He's terrified, but beneath the terror is a small part of him that wildly suggests that if he stays silent and dies before the Invisibility Invigoration wears off, then Voldemort might not kill his mother. Her death should be a punishment for him, which it couldn't be if he were already dead.

But then Voldemort points his wand and murmurs, " _Crucio!_ " and Draco screams. It's agony unlike he's ever imagined and when it's over and Voldemort again demands he identify himself, he relents.

"Draco," he gasps, hating himself for giving in so easily and hoping that his mother will forgive him in the afterlife. "Draco Malfoy."

* * *

"I have to go, precious."

James lifts his head from Lucius' thigh to look up at him. He sits on the floor of the Headmasters' rooms in Hogwarts, nestled between Lucius' legs and using his thigh as a pillow while Lucius' fingers comb through his hair. Neither of them has spoken before now, merely taking comfort in each other's presence.

"Why? It's not even lunch yet."

"The Dark Lord calls. I'll return when he's done with me."

"I hate it when you're not here."

Lucius smiles gently and cups his cheek. "I know. I'll return as soon as I can."

He floos into the Malfoy Manor drawing room. It's the only place where anyone can floo to or from Hogwarts, established so Lucius can visit James without leaving the Manor and risk getting captured by Snape, as Voldemort fears might happen in an attempt to rescue Harry. But Lucius' stomach drops when he sees Draco on the floor with Narcissa crouched over him, both of them looking scared and Draco shaking with the after-effects of the Cruciatus.

"Your son has betrayed me, Lucius."

Lucius' mouth is dry. He clears his throat and licks his lips, but his voice still comes out slightly raspy when he speaks. "That's not possible. Draco is at Hogwarts. It's an imposter. Severus—"

"It is not Severus. Tell your father what you tried to do, Draco."

As Lucius listens to the story, he wants to go to Draco and shake him for being so stupid, for putting himself and his mother in so much danger, for putting an insane, treacherous child before his family.

"My lord, I beg of you, please don't kill him."

"You would have me renege on my word, Lucius?"

Lucius swallows thickly. "He's my son," he says, and hates the way his voice quavers. "Please, my lord, punish him but don't kill him."

"Punish him as Harry Evans is punished?"

"NO!" The word's out before he even thinks about it, echoed by Narcissa. Voldemort almost looks satisfied.

"I would rather see him dead than suffer like that," Narcissa pleads.

"Mother!"

"Draco, be quiet!" Lucius says sharply. "My lord, _please_. He's just a child, he made a mistake. It won't happen again."

"No," Voldemort says coldly, and Lucius knows that no amount of begging will help. "It won't. You have served me faithfully, Lucius. I cannot go back on my word, but I will allow you the chance to leave first. Stay, and you will watch them both die."

The mere thought of it makes him want to vomit. He turns on his heel and stalks towards the door and Narcissa's shriek follows him out.

"Lucius Malfoy, you coward!"

"How disappointing," Voldemort murmurs. "The Assistant believed Lucius would have much more fortitude if his family were threatened." Uncaring much, he turns his attention back to the two in front of him. "Step away from him, Narcissa."

Narcissa rises to her feet, but instead of moving away she steps in front of Draco, putting herself between him and Voldemort.

"I will not watch you kill my child."

"Then you are as cowardly as you call your husband."

" _Ex_ -husband, and he is not standing here defending Draco. If you wish to kill him, you go through me."

Voldemort flicks his wand. Draco cries out as Narcissa's flung to one side, hitting the floor hard and moaning.

"Mother!"

"I will not make the mistake of letting a woman die for her child again," Voldemort says. "He dies first."

Draco looks from Narcissa to Voldemort, face white and terrified as Voldemort points his wand and snarls, " _Avada Kedavra!_ "


	93. Chapter 93

Hermione sits on watch outside their tent when she sees the wolf. She swallows the urge to shout for Neville, unwilling to make much noise despite the spells and charms they've put up, but gets to her feet and shakily points her wand in the direction of the animal, mentally kicking herself for setting up camp in a forest on the full moon. She knows the law says werewolves are supposed to lock themselves in a secure location on the full moon, but that doesn't mean everyone obeys it, though she notices a collar around its neck with a bit of rope dangling from it, the end of the rope frayed and damp with saliva, clearly having been chewed through.

The animal moves slowly and seemingly without purpose, sniffing at the ground as it goes and she wonders if it can smell them. They use no spells specifically designed to hide scent and she doesn't even know any. Whether it can or not is irrelevant though, because either way it's shifting closer to them and she grips her wand tighter.

But it doesn't approach her or the tent. It gradually moves over to one of the trees, sniffs around the base a while, and then curls up between two large roots. She remains standing, watching it until she's certain it's asleep, then slowly lowers herself to sit again, keeping her wand out and pointed in the general direction of the wolf.

She doesn't mean to fall asleep, but the sun is up when a hand lands on her shoulder.

"Hermione!"

She jerks awake. "Wha-"

"Look!"

She looks at where he's pointing and scrambles to her feet when she sees a naked and scarred man curled up at the base of a nearby tree. Only when she sees the collar and the rope around his neck does she remember the werewolf from the night before. She undoes her cloak, thinking that the man's collar must be charmed to change size with the transformation because it now sits as snugly around his throat as it had the wolf's, and ignores Neville's hissed warning as she goes to the man, laying her cloak over him. She's got no plans to stick around, but they don't have to leave him lying naked in the forest in mid-October. Hopefully if he has the sense to rope himself then he's left himself some clothes somewhere as well and can find his way back to them.

But as she's about to stand and go back to Neville, she notices something that makes her gasp. As well as the runes carved amidst the rest of the scars decorating his skin he's also got a scar on his forehead—a distinctive lightning bolt shaped one.

* * *

Lucius breaks into a run the moment the drawing room door shuts behind him, tearing towards the cellar. He snarls a spell before the door to the hidden room even fully opens, lighting the torch on the wall as he bends to crouch by Harry. He rolls him onto his back and grabs his face in both hands, eliciting a faint whine from him.

"I know you can hear me," he whispers furiously. "They haven't damaged your ears, so you listen closely. The Dark Lord has Draco. He's going to kill him. I'm going to undo those chains and you're going to use your weird magic to get my son to safety. You'll get him, and Narcissa, and both of us out of here. Do you hear me? You get us _all_ to safety or I swear to Merlin I will kill you myself."

Harry opens his mouth but all that comes out is a snake-like hiss. Lucius doesn't manage to repress the shudder that runs through him; for all his time serving the Dark Lord, he never got used to hearing the strange, sibilant language of Parseltongue. He just hopes whatever the boy said translates to something along the lines of yes, because he doesn't have time to wait. He lets go of Harry's face, turns his wand on the chains around his wrists, and murmurs, " _Relashio!_ "

* * *

The Assistant wakes slowly at first, feeling cold hard earth and crunching leaves underneath him, then jerks up when he realises there's a cloak laying over him when there really shouldn't be. The cloak falls away but he instinctively grabs it to keep his privates covered as his eyes fix on the two teenagers stood not far from him. They don't look injured, which is a relief given that he's not tied to the tree he roped himself to the night before, but he wishes they weren't pointing wands at him.

"Who are you?" Hermione demands.

"I think you know the answer to that, and as you can see I'm unarmed so I'd really appreciate it if you would lower your wands."

They don't.

"Tell us your name."

"Can you at least summon my bag so I can put some clothes on for this conversation, please?"

"Answer the question," Neville insists.

"You know who I am," the Assistant snaps. "You wouldn't have stuck around to wait for me to wake up if you didn't, but it's a long conversation to explain it all so _please_ summon my bag before I freeze to death."

Neville summons it while Hermione keeps her wand on the Assistant. A slightly muddy and very worn sports holdall comes flying towards them and Neville catches it then goes to hand it to the Assistant, but Hermione holds out her hand.

"Take his wand from it first."

Annoyance flashes across the Assistant's face even as he says, "I don't have a wand."

Neville puts the bag down and crouches, unzipping it and digging through. He finds no wand, just a pair of jeans, two t-shirts and a hoodie, a black cap, a pair of trainers, a plastic money bag with fifty quid and some change inside, a bottle of water, and a gun. In the side pocket there's a clear plastic bag holding a couple of hypodermic needles, a rubber tourniquet, a spoon, a lighter, and a small baggie of white powder.

"What's this stuff?"

Hermione looks down at the plastic bag in Neville's hand then back to the Assistant. "Are those drugs?"

"Well it sure as hell ain't sugar."

Her lips purse and her fingers tighten on her wand. "Why do you have a gun?"

"Because I don't have a wand and I refuse to be completely defenceless. Just put it all back and give me the bag. I'm not going to hurt either of you."

"You expect us to believe that when you're carrying a gun?" she scoffs and his expression turns bitter and angry.

"You're the one with a deadly weapon in her hand, not me."

"I would never kill anyone!"

"Maybe you wouldn't, but you're still holding a weapon as potentially dangerous as my gun. More so. There's no surviving a Killing Curse. At least if I shot you you'd have a chance of surviving it."

"But I wouldn't use the Killing Curse. You could accidentally fire the gun."

"I'm not a fucking idiot; I know how to handle a gun. Can I at least have my fucking clothes?"

"You're very rude," Hermione says as Neville hands the clothes over, turning her back while the man changes. Neville nudges her when he's done and she looks back, seeing the Assistant dressed and standing, the rope discarded to the ground but collar staying in place, and combing his fingers through greasy hair to brush it out the way before he pulls the cap on. The money's tucked in his back pocket, but Neville still has everything else.

"I'm tired, hungry, thirsty, jonesing, and you're threatening me. Forgive me if I'm not feeling overly friendly. I'm getting kind of sick of being controlled by people weaker than me."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You think I carved these into myself?" he asks her, pointing to the runes on his face. "You're a smart girl, Hermione, I'm sure you recognise them."

"How do you know my name?" she asks sharply.

"Use your brain. You've seen my scar, my eyes—you know who I am. You know how I know you. Both of you."

Hermione shakes her head. "No, I know who you look like."

"Time loop."

She's thrown by the non-sequiter. "What?"

"Time. Loop. Reset variety. I'm sure you've read about them. Bet you did a whole load of research on time travel in your third year."

"Hermione, what's he talking about?"

But Hermione doesn't answer, staring at the Assistant and thinking furiously.

"Hermione?"

"Time loops are illegal."

"Oh yeah, 'cause I totally got myself stuck in one on purpose," the Assistant drawls. "It's great fun living the same twenty fucking years over and over again."

"Can one of you explain what's going on?" Neville asks, glancing between them.

"He's Harry," Hermione says, but she makes no move to lower her wand. "From the future."

"That's not technically correct," the Assistant says. "I'm not Harry. I'm just another version of him."

"I don't understand," Neville says, frowning heavily.

"It's—look, can I have that water, please?"

Neville tosses the bottle to him and he gulps down half of it before speaking again.

"Okay, it's really not that complicated. I was born Harry Potter, I grew up, way different life than Harry Evans. I was raised by my dad, he died, I got adopted by the Malfoys, I grew up a junior Death Eater, but things went bad quick, ended up not unlike they are now and I realised it wasn't such a nice world to live in, so I did a ritual to send me back in time so I could change things, only I fucked up and now I'm stuck in a time loop. You get all that?"

"Um... I think so," Neville says slowly, glancing at Hermione who looks as understanding as she does in a classroom.

"Right, well, basically I now live a twenty year period over and over again. Same people, vaguely different stories each time. I'm someone Harry could have grown up to be if he'd had the same life I did, but we're not the same person."

"Does he know all this?" Hermione asks and the Assistant nods.

"Him, Severus Snape, James Potter, the Dark Lord, and a handful of Death Eaters. Sirius Black and Albus Dumbledore knew as well. I've spent most of this timeline going by the Assistant."

"But he's blond," Hermione blurts. "I've seen him."

"Glamour. Couldn't go around looking like this."

"Oh. Yes, I suppose not."

"So are you on their side or ours?" Neville asks him.

"Neither. I'm on my side. You see these? They're magic suppression runes. I'm as powerless as a Muggle, so you can really lose the wands."

Neville glances at Hermione, who slowly lowers her wand, and copies her.

"What do you mean you're on your side?" she asks.

"I mean a Death Eater made me powerless so now I'm just waiting for this stupid fucking timeline to end so I can start over. I want nothing to do with you or with them. All I want to do is get back to London so I can get high and sleep."

"Drugs are bad for you."

The Assistant snorts, tugging at his collar. "No shit, Sherlock. And don't you fucking judge me, Hermione," he adds angrily, seeing her expression. "I have _lost my magic_ and I've still got six fucking months before my time loop resets. So yeah, I'm doping myself up to make things a little easier. Now if we're done here, I'd like my bag back and we can part ways. I'm sure you'd like to move on as well."

"You can go, but you're not getting the gun or drugs back," Hermione says. "I'm leaving them somewhere for the police to find."

The Assistant glares at her, hands clenching as if he'd like nothing more than to put them around her throat. "Give me them back and I'll tell you where to find the Horcruxes you're looking for."

Hermione's wand is up in a flash. "How do you know about that?"

The Assistant lets out a frustrated growl. "I already told you, I'm in a fucking time loop. I know all this shit. I know your favourite colour is scarlet, I know where your parents are right now, I know that you got nine O's and an E in your OWLs and the E was in Defence Against the Dark Arts, and I know you keep a stuffed rabbit at home. You want me to carry on?"

They both shake their heads.

"Where are they?" Neville asks.

"Give me the bag and the gun."

"Tell us first," Hermione says and the Assistant chuckles humourlessly.

"No. That's not how it works, Hermione, because I can get a new gun and a new bag. You can't get this information from anyone else. Give me my stuff, and I'll tell you where they are."

"How do we know you're not bluffing? You might not know where they are."

"You know what? Fuck it. I'm done talking with a pair of fucking teenagers in the middle of the forest. I'm going back to London. Dobby!"

There's a crack and Dobby appears in front of him, wearing a mismatched pair of shorts and a jumper. Hermione and Neville jump.

"You is calling, Master Assistant?"

"Yeah, I'm ready to leave."

Dobby hurries over to stand beside him and hold up his hand. The Assistant takes it and—

"Wait!"

"Hold up," the Assistant murmurs, but doesn't let go of Dobby's hand. Hermione levitates the bag to him. He lets go of Dobby's hand to sling it over his shoulder, taking the gun out and checking it before tucking it into the back of his jeans.

"Where are they?" Hermione asks.

"Dobby, can you give me five minutes please?"

Dobby nods and vanishes.

"Hufflepuff's cup is in Bellatrix Lestrange's Gringotts vault. Or what was her vault. She died back in July and I can't guarantee it, but if things went the same as other timelines that vault belongs to Draco Malfoy now. Nagini's with the Dark Lord, same as always. And the Gaunt ring is in the back of a cave in the mountain over Hogsmeade, behind a loose bit of rock that'll only open with my blood."

"Then you have to help us!" Neville says. The Assistant shakes his head.

"That rock's magically locked, Neville. My blood isn't enough, it needs magic as well. I can't help you with shit. But Harry can get things out of it. You know about his special kind of magic? 'Wish Magic'? Well he can get it out with that."

"But he's a Death Eater."

"So am I. Technically."

"Then Harry's a traitor too?" Hermione says hopefully.

"For all the good it'll do you," the Assistant says. "Last I heard, he was still locked in Malfoy Manor getting tortured for his betrayal."

"We have to get him out!"

The Assistant snorts. "Good luck with that."

"Can't you help us?"

"Haven't you fucking listened?" he snaps. "I can't do shit."

"But he's you! Don't you care about him?"

"He's not me. He's someone I could have been and, to be honest, am really fucking glad I'm not. I feel bad that he's where he is, but there's nothing I can do about it. Look, I get that you're in a hopeless situation. You're not getting those Horcruxes and the Dark Lord's not dying in this timeline, not so far as I can see anyway. Honestly, you're both better off getting the hell out of dodge."

"Can I ask you something before you go?" Hermione says.

"Can't stop you."

"Why does your house elf wear clothes?"

"Because he's not legally my elf. I set him free after I bought him. He was so grateful he gladly works for me anyway, even though I can't pay him anymore."

"You used to pay him?" she asks approvingly.

"When I could afford it."

"You could probably afford it if you didn't spend all your money on drugs," she says snottily.

"First off, I consider drugs more important at this juncture than paying a house elf who's willing to work for free. Secondly," he says as Dobby reappears, "I don't spend all my money on drugs. I gotta feed myself, y'know."

* * *

Snape goes to Little Whinging and buries a box in the same crossroads that Harry had almost ten years earlier. The demon that appears looks like a woman, dark haired and objectively beautiful, he supposes. Her eyes flick red as she asks him what he wants.

"An exchange. My son sold his soul nine and half years ago; I want to swap mine for his."

The demon isn't happy. "Only the boss can do exchanges."

"How do I meet your boss?"

"That would be me."

He turns. A middle-aged man with a receding hairline and a cockney accent has appeared. When Snape glances over his shoulder, the woman has gone.

"Crowley, at your service. I hear you want an exchange. What's the kid's name?"

"Harry Evans. Would have been Harry Potter when he made his deal."

Crowley chuckles. "Well, well, well. The rumours are true. Little Evans really isn't a Potter."

"Did you come here to do business or gossip?"

"Neither," Crowley replies with a smirk. "The boy's soul isn't up for exchange."

"I'm not asking ten years," Snape offers, although he had hoped to get that much. "Just the rest of his... term."

"Such a polite way of putting it, but no deal. That soul is too valuable to give up. If you still want to sell yours, I can give you a good price."

"The only thing I would sell my soul for is Harry's."

"Not even to get him out of that dungeon he's locked in?"

Snape's gaze narrows and he curls his fingers around the wand in his pocket. "How do you know about that?"

"I know where all my contracts are, even the ones who think breaking their soul will keep them safe."

"Do you mean to imply Harry's soul is broken?"

"Split right down the middle," Crowley confirms. "You wizards have an awful habit of meddling with things you really shouldn't meddle with. Dangerous business, splitting souls. Causes dreadful damage to the soul in question."

"Harry's not stupid; why would he think splitting his soul would keep it from you?"

"He didn't just split it, you overgrown bat. He put a piece of it in something else and tried to hide that from me. But when his time comes, I'll get both and stick him back together when I drag him down to hell. Now are we going to make a deal or not?"

He thinks about it. Is it worth his soul to get Harry out of Malfoy Manor and safe now? He certainly hasn't figured out any other ways to do it. Harry has little more than six months left and spending them locked up and tortured isn't how anyone should end their life. Snape has a chance to save him from it; shouldn't he take it? It's what father's are supposed to do, after all, look after their children in any way they can, and he's done a shit job of it before now. It's too late to properly make up for what he's done—and not done—for Harry, but he can do this, at least.

"You get Harry to me," he says to Crowley, "and you heal him of any and all injuries, including his epilepsy and brain damage, and you put his soul back together."

"You drive a hard bargain," Crowley says, but he smiles. "But done. I assume you know how these things are sealed?"

Snape's lip curls. "A kiss."

"You're as bad as your son. It's really not that terrible."

"Let's just get it over with."

He lets Crowley approach him, standing still and resisting the urge to back away as the demon leans in.


	94. Chapter 94

Snape vanishes. Crowley's left standing in the middle of the crossroads, lips puckered to kiss thin air. He blinks, stepping back and looking around.

"That's never happened before."

* * *

Narcissa and Draco vanish an instant before the Killing Curse slams into Draco and Voldemort screams furiously, but it gives way to a shocked yell when he suddenly finds himself in the hidden room with chains around his wrists and a metal collar about his throat.

* * *

Snape's startled to find himself suddenly standing in the charred ruins of what used to be his house. He's even more startled to find Lucius, Narcissa, Draco, James, the Assistant, McGonagall, Hermione, Neville, Cid and Harry there with him—as well as a screaming ball of flames.

The Assistant leaps up and kicks the ball of flames several times and Snape realises that it's a person—two people, the one on top on fire, the one underneath trapped and screaming. Snape jerks his wand out at the same moment McGonagall does and they both cast Aquamenti at the person on fire, shooting water onto them even as the Assistant kicks them over and then bends to grab the second person by the arms and drag them away.

"It's a vampire, leave it!" the Assistant yells. "Narcissa, he's burned, he needs help."

Narcissa hurries over to them, crouching and murmuring a spell over the burns on the back of the teenager the Assistant's holding. He whimpers painfully and the Assistant shushes him, stroking his hair.

"It's alright, you'll be alright."

"Danni," the boy whimpers. The Assistant flicks his gaze to the charred corpse now lying a few feet from them, the flames dying as quickly as they'd started.

"She's gone."

Draco's the first to go to Harry, kneeling by him and hesitantly reaching for his face.

"Harry? Harry, it's Draco. Can you hear me?"

"Draco?" His voice is quiet, the word almost hissed, and full of fear and uncertainty.

"Yeah, it's me, it's alright. You're safe now, you're out."

"Cold."

Draco starts to unbutton his robes but Snape's quicker, pulling off his cloak and laying it over Harry. He flinches the moment it touches him.

"It's just me," Snape says softly.

"Dad?"

Surprise flickers across Snape's face, but he nods. "Yeah... Dad."

"Holy shit, that's Tyler."

Snape and Draco both look over at Cid's words. He's staring down at the boy the Assistant's holding, who's now looking around with pained confusion as Narcissa sits back on her heels.

"That's all I can do without Burn Salve. It'll ease the burning slightly, but he needs some and quickly."

"We need to get out from the open," Lucius says. "Urgently."

"What on earth is going on anyway?" McGonagall asks. "How did we all get here?"

"Questions can wait, Minerva," Snape answers, attention turning back to Harry. "Lucius is right. Harry, we're not safe out here. Take us to Coleford and put every protection you can on the house. It's being monitored by the Ministry; you have to make sure no one can get in but us."

"What about the rest of—" Lucius begins angrily, but breaks off when all of them disappear from the ruined house and reappear in the Black Stag House living room, several of them crying out in surprise. Tyler groans and then throws up on the Assistant, who makes a disgusted noise.

"That's gross."

"Potter, how many beds does this place have?" Snape demands.

"Three—mine, Harry's, and Sirius and Remus'."

"Harry—" Snape cuts himself off, looking down to find Harry unconscious. He draws his wand and stands, casting a Levitation Charm on the boy then looking over at the Assistant and Tyler, who's on the brink of passing out as well. "Bring him up. Narcissa, come as well, please. Everyone else, wait here a minute," he orders, and then adds, "And don't kill each other."

Harry's bed is a double. Snape lays him on it then shrinks the bed down to the size of a single, vanishes the empty bookcase, shifts the desk to one corner, and casts a Doubling Charm on the bed to create another which Narcissa levitates Tyler onto. He's crying silently, face screwed up in pain, and whimpers when he's set down. Snape's bag, which has an Undetectable Expansion Charm on it by necessity, hangs across his body and he removes it, setting it on Harry's desk and digging through it for Harry's trunk and a potions carry case. He puts the former on the floor and opens the latter, glad now that he did buy a variety of healing potions earlier that month. He gives Narcissa a vial of pain reliever and a jar of Burn Salve and she helps Tyler drink the potion then sits by him and opens the pot while it takes effect, knocking the boy out in the process, allowing her to smear the orange paste over his back without causing him further pain.

Snape inspects Harry, but there are few injuries he can heal. Much of the blood on him is old and dried, revealing scabbed over and healing injuries when he cleans it away with a flick of his wand. He has a couple of cracked ribs that Snape fixes with a spell, and a motley of bruises that he dabs with a cream and which fade away by the time he reaches the last one.

"Will he be alright?" Draco asks.

"No."

Draco inhales sharply and Narcissa glances over. "Severus."

He looks at her then at Draco and expands, "He won't die from his injuries, but he's in bad shape and it's going to take a long time before he heals. Mentally, he's not likely to heal at all. Stay with him. Hopefully he'll sleep for a while, but if he wakes he should have someone with him. Narcissa, are you done?"

She nods, leaving an empty pot on the desk and Tyler's back covered in orange paste, and holds her hands in front of her.

"Bathroom?"

"The door opposite," Draco answers.

"Thank you."

When Narcissa has washed her hands, her and Snape return downstairs to find Lucius and James at one end of the living room and McGonagall, Hermione, Neville, and Cid at the other, with Lucius and McGonagall shooting glares at each other, while the Assistant stands by the front door, looking ready to flee. Snape fixes his attention on Lucius.

"Explain what happened."

"When?"

"Don't be pedantic, Lucius," Narcissa snaps. "You know perfectly well what he's talking about."

"You might be a bit more polite when I just saved you and Draco from guaranteed death, Narcissa."

She lifts her nose and says nothing.

"I'm waiting," Snape growls. Lucius sneers at him, but answers.

"Draco tried to rescue the boy—Evans—earlier. The Dark Lord caught him and was going to kill him and Narcissa. I had to save them so I freed the boy and told him to get us all to safety. I don't know why the rest of you ended up at that place. I don't even know these three," he says, gesturing to Hermione, Neville, and Cid with his wand, "nor the other boy."

"They're his friends," Snape says. "I think he took your 'all' a bit too literally and saved everyone he likes."

"Then who was the vampire?" McGonagall asks.

"Not likely a friend," the Assistant answers. "Just a guess, but I'd wager her and Tyler were too close together when Harry brought Tyler and she just got pulled along for the ride."

"And who are you?"

The Assistant lifts a hand and taps two fingers to his head in a salute. "I'm the Assistant."

"Aren't you a Death Eater?" Cid asks him. "Didn't you help in the Azkaban break out?"

"Yes and yes, but half the people in this house at the moment are technically Death Eaters. We're all traitors though."

"Fucking brilliant," Cid mutters sarcastically then remembers McGonagall and adds, "Sorry, professor."

McGonagall says nothing, but looks like she shares the sentiment.

"So how did we all end up at that ruined house anyway?" Cid asks. "You're saying it's Harry, but how?"

"Harry has greater power than anyone you've ever met, Mr Villiers," Snape answers him. "Moving things from one place to another with a bare thought is easy for him. Where were you? Hogwarts?"

"Three Broomsticks. Hogsmeade weekend."

Snape looks to Hermione who says, "We were in Yorkshire."

"What were you doing there? Why weren't you at Hogwarts?"

"I'm Muggleborn," she reminds him. "I'm not allowed anymore."

"I was staying with her," Neville says, lifting his chin challengingly, but Snape's not really interested.

"Then go back to whatever you were doing. Minerva, take Villiers back to Hogwarts. Potter, go with them; you're the headmaster, you can come up with an excuse for why he vanished."

James glances at Lucius, who's still staring at Snape.

"He can't go back, Severus. I betrayed the Dark Lord; he knows James' loyalty to me is greater than to the him. He'll kill him."

"To be honest, I really don't care what happens to Potter, Lucius. Nor you."

"I saved your son, Severus, you owe me!"

"You put him there in the first place and you only saved him to save Draco and Narcissa. Don't pretend you give two shits about Harry."

"I still got him out!"

"After _four_ months. Have you actually looked at him, Lucius? Seen the state he's in? Or perhaps you don't need to because you contributed to it. How often was he screaming under your wand, I wonder?"

"I never touched him, Severus. I promised Draco I wouldn't."

"And you've never broken a promise," Snape sneers sarcastically.

"Not to my son," Lucius replies coldly. "But you wouldn't know anything about being a decent father, would you, Severus? After all, you left your son to grow up with Muggles."

Snape's wand flashes, there's a bang, and Lucius is thrown off his feet. James flings a hex at Snape, who jerks aside to dodge it and throws one back. James shields and then—

"Stop it! _Expelliarmus!_ "

Snape and James' wands fly from their hands and Hermione snatches them out of the air.

"I thought you two were on the same side! This isn't the time for fighting!"

"Miss Granger, give me back my wand or I will—"

"You'll what?" Neville interrupts, his own wand in hand and standing firm under Snape's glare. "Take points from Gryffindor? This isn't Hogwarts anymore, prof- Snape. He's the bad guy here," he says, pointing at Lucius as he gets to his feet.

"And Potter is working with him," Snape snaps. "You have no idea what you're talking about, Longbottom, so shut up. Granger, my wand."

"It's too crowded for—" she breaks off, flicking her wand towards Lucius, who raised his own only for it to fly from his grip.

"How _dare_ you take my wand, you filthy Mudblood!" he snarls, starting towards her, and Hermione points her wand directly at his chest.

"This Mudblood bested your supposedly superior son in all our classes, Mr Malfoy, and I'm the one holding all the wands so you might want to be a bit more polite. I'm not going anywhere, Professor. I want to know Harry's going to be okay and when he's healed I need to talk to him urgently about something."

"I'm not going anywhere either," Neville adds firmly.

"Can I stay too?" Cid pipes in. "Just a bit, to talk to Tyler. He never turned up at Hogwarts."

"I don't think anyone can go anywhere," James says, standing by the window. "Three Aurors have just appeared outside and if Harry did what you said, Snape, then we can't Apparate from here, surely?"

Snape stalks over to a second window, going to the wall beside it and peering out without standing directly in front of it. "Debatable. He could always come and go from my house, as could I. I did tell him to make it so no one but us could get in."

For a moment no one says or does anything then Hermione mutters, "Oh for Pete's sake," and disappears with a pop. Neville cries her name, but she's back again just a few seconds later and declares, "We can leave."

"Obviously," Snape drawls. Hermione scowls at him.

"Well someone had to test it."

"How do we know they can't get in though?" Cid asks worriedly.

"I think the fact that they're just standing there glaring at the house might be a clue," James says. "Should we do something about them?"

"That's an unnecessary fight, Potter. As long as they stay out there, we're fine," Snape counters, turning away from the window.

"Mr Villiers, you need to go back to Hogwarts. Mr Lyle will be fine; someone will contact you when we know what happened to him. Minerva, take him back. You're still Deputy Headmistress, I assume?"

"For all the good it does," she confirms. "James isn't the only Death Eater in the school, Severus."

"I heard," he tells her while Hermione and Neville gape at James, who turns away slightly, eyes down, rubbing self-consciously at his left arm. "The Carrow siblings. Just... you can cover for him for a few hours at least, until we get this mess sorted out. Check the headmaster's desk later; I'll have Harry send a letter to it."

She nods. "I hope I see you again, Severus. Miss Granger, Mr, Longbottom, be safe. Mr Villiers, come with me."

"Granger, the wands," Snape demands when McGonagall and Cid are gone. "Lucius, if you want to stay, you'll keep it in your pocket and you'll make sure Potter does the same. I see either of you with a wand in your hand, I will send you back to the Dark Lord myself."

Lucius looks furious but Snape's face is set and he nods stiffly, holding out his hand to Hermione, who hands over his wand then passes James and Snape's back as well. Snape pockets his only when James and Lucius have done so.

"Harry will be in no state to talk to anyone for some time," Snape says to Hermione. "I don't want you here and I don't know how long we might be here, but I won't throw you out unless you cause undue trouble with others. That goes for you as well, Lucius," he says, glaring at the other man. "I can assure you that this house is the safest place in the world right now, so if you want to stay you'll play nice and that includes biting your tongue in matters regarding blood." Snape looks over at the Assistant. "Will your Bond to Yaxley allow him to get through Harry's protections?"

"No, but he's not likely to come looking for me anyway," the Assistant answers, tapping his cheek to draw Snape's attention to his scars. "He kicked me out with nothing, but even with specific orders not to use my magic he apparently didn't trust me not to work a way around it and carved these into me. I can't do magic."

"Then where were you before my house?"

"A dump in London. I'm willing to stick around, Severus, but only if I get my shit from where I was staying."

"I thought he kicked you out with nothing."

"That was a month ago. I've picked up a few things and I need them if you want me to stay here."

"What things?"

"A weapon for one. I've got no magic, Severus; I'm not staying in a house full of wizards without some way to defend myself, especially if Luci there is sticking around."

"What kind of weapon?"

"A gun, if you must know. I don't have to stay," he adds when Snape's expression sours. "I really don't care, to be honest. It's not like I can do a lot, so feel free to drop me back at my hovel. But Harry included me in his little get together, so if he or you want me to stay, I get my gun."

"Where did you even get a gun? I refuse to believe you could scrounge enough money to buy one from the black market."

The Assistant scoffs. "Of course not. I nicked it from a dead bloke. Gang warfare: nasty business, but good spoils."

"If someone's willing to take you, then fine," Snape agrees, albeit reluctantly. "But the same rules apply—you stay, you play nice, and I don't want to see the gun out unless it's absolutely necessary, which it shouldn't be if everyone does as I ask."

"Excuse me," Lucius drawls, "but who put you in charge anyway, Severus?"

"I did, and you will deal with it."

"Will I?"

Snape's lip curls. "Yes, because it's _my_ son who's keeping the house protected right now, so even if all of you decided to oust me, it's my word he'll listen to and I expect that if I decide we need to move elsewhere, he will take Draco with him."

"Severus is right," Narcissa says. "You've done your part, Lucius, now be quiet and accept things as they are."

Lucius scowls, but doesn't argue with her.

The Assistant clears his throat. "So, any offers to take me to London?"

No one answers immediately, then Hermione asks, "Why don't you just call your house elf?"

"He won't get through Harry's protections, not if he's done them right anyway."

"Oh. I'll take you then."

"I'll come too," Neville adds, but Hermione shakes her head.

"It's fine, Neville. Stay here."

"Hermione, you can't go with him alone."

"I won't hurt her, Neville."

"You're a Death Eater."

The Assistant's expression darkens. "So are half the people in this house at the moment and aside from Tyler I'm still the least dangerous person here. I'm the one with no magic, and you should have a little more faith in your girlfriend. She's a powerful witch."

"He's not my boyfriend," Hermione mutters, going to him. "Where in London are we going?"

* * *

"You live here?"

They're in the living room of an abandoned house. Both windows are knocked out and covered with ratty, fluttering blankets pinned to the wall. The only proper furniture is a lopsided sofa with holes in its fabric and no cushions, and the floor is littered with food containers, broken needles, and other rubbish.

"You saw me earlier this morning," the Assistant says to Hermione, stepping over rubbish to where his bag sits beside a cardboard box acting as a table. "I'm sure you didn't think I was living it large in a manor house."

"I at least thought you had somewhere proper to live."

"It's got a roof and four walls, and you can't talk about proper places to live when you're living in a tent."

She purses her lips but doesn't argue with him.

* * *

Neville follows Snape upstairs when he goes back to Harry's bedroom, wanting to get away from Lucius. He's uncomfortable with everyone, especially without Hermione there, but he's less awkward standing in Harry's bedroom with just him, Draco, and Tyler. Snape checks Harry, tells Draco to call when Harry wakes, then returns downstairs to talk with the other adults.

Draco clears his throat. "So how long since you and Granger split up?" he asks, revealing that he'd eavesdropped on the earlier conversation.

"What do you care, Malfoy?"

"I don't," Draco replies. "I was merely making conversation, Longbottom."

"A few weeks," Neville mutters. "We decided we were better as friends."

"Took you a year and half to figure that out?"

Neville shrugs.

"Why weren't you at Hogwarts this year anyway?" Draco asks with false lightness. "Granger I understand, but you're a pureblood."

"I didn't want her to be alone."

"Touching."

"Says the guy who went against You Know Who to save Harry."

Draco's cheeks go pink but he meets Neville's gaze firmly. "I love him."

"And I love Hermione," Neville says. "Just not... just as a friend."

* * *

"Severus?"

He turns to Narcissa, a slight twist in his gut. There's a hint of something in her voice that puts him on edge and her expression doesn't help.

"I don't expect you to apologise for killing Bellatrix, and I fully understand why you did it," she says, and then slaps him hard, "but that's for my sister."

* * *

"Before we go back can I ask you something?"

The Assistant shrugs. "Can't go anywhere until you decide so go ahead."

"Why do you call yourself the Assistant? I mean, I understand why you wouldn't use your real name, but why the Assistant?"

"Ever seen Doctor Who? The TV show?"

Hermione nods. "I used to watch it with my parents; I was really disappointed when it ended. You got it from there?"

"Yup. It's a good show and I figured seeing as I'm a time traveller, I should have a time traveller's name."

"How did it happen? Your time loop, I mean. Did you break a time turner?"

"No, I just buggered up the ritual I used to go back. Time turners only go so far, you know, and I was aiming for ten years."

"But you got twenty?"

"Near enough."

"Is everything different? I know some things are because you're so different to Harry, but are other things?"

"In this timeline, a lot of things are. Sometimes things are a lot more similar. Sometimes I've no idea because I don't stick around to see them play out."

"What do you mean?"

"It gets boring and depressing seeing the same stuff happen again and again. Sometimes I fuck off and live my life somewhere else. Robbed a bank once and hopped it over to Vegas, spent twenty years gambling and having lots of sex."

"You robbed a bank?!"

He smiles. "Done a lot worse than that, Hermione. Shall we head back?"

* * *

"So is there a plan of some sort in the works?" the Assistant asks when they've got back. Snape, Lucius, James, and Narcissa sits around the dining room table and the Assistant stands in the doorway, gun tucked in the back of his trousers and arms folded over his chest.

"We wait for Harry to wake up and heal," Snape says. "Then we see if he's up to killing the Dark Lord."

"Uh huh. And you're on board with this?" the Assistant asks Lucius.

"I don't really have much choice, do I? I betrayed him. Either he dies, or my family and I do."


	95. Chapter 95

Tyler is the first to wake up, about an hour after they all arrive at the house. Draco, Snape, and the Assistant are in the bedroom with him and Harry, and they watch as Tyler blearily blinks his eyes open and looks around.

"Where'm I?" he asks raspily.

"Somewhere safe," the Assistant answers.

"What happened? Who're you? What's Malfoy and Snape doing here? Is that Harry?" he asks, looking over at the other bed.

"Yes, but he's not a threat to you," the Assistant assures him. "I'm the Assistant. What do you remember?"

"I was at home. With Danni. We were in bed and then... then we weren't and it hurt. What happened? Where's Danni?"

"You were teleported—Apparated if you prefer—out of your home, but when it happened Danni came with you because you were so close at the time. You ended up outside, but it was mid morning so Danni... she's dead, Tyler."

"What?"

"I'm sorry. There was nothing that could save her out in the sun like that."

"She can't be dead," Tyler say desperately.

The Assistant looks at him sadly. "I'm sorry."

"No, but I need her."

"You don't," the Assistant says softly. "That's just the seduction. It'll wear off soon."

"You don't understand," Tyler insists urgently. "I _need_ her. She's the only one that can find my father."

"What do you mean?" Draco asks, but Snape puts off an explanation, insisting it waits until he fetches Narcissa and has her check over Tyler's burns. Hermione and Neville come up when she does, lingering in the hall to listen through the door when Tyler explains his relationship with Danni.

"Danni was a Muggle and friends with Marcus when they were kids, and with my great-grandfather and his brother, who were squibs apparently, which Marcus never told me before. I'm the first wizard in my mother's family since my great-great grandparents. Everyone thought Danni died during World War Two, but she didn't, she was just injured during an air raid and a vampire found her and turned her. She turned up at our house not long after Dumbledore died and she kept visiting. When Marcus died, Danni took me in. I couldn't go back to Hogwarts because the new laws say adoption doesn't count for blood purity and great-great grandparents are too far back to count, and I didn't have anything to prove my heritage anyway. But Danni said she'd look after me and help me find my real father, that she could find out who it is by tasting my blood."

"She lied," Snape says bluntly.

"But... but vampires can tell if you're related by the taste of your blood," Tyler insists, looking between the adults. "I've read about it. They can."

"She wouldn't have been able to find your father though," the Assistant tells him. "Not unless she was going around randomly biting men to see if they tasted similar to you."

"But she promised me! She said she could tell by the taste that I was a half-blood and she'd find out who my father is so then I could prove I was a half-blood and go back to Hogwarts. She promised!"

"I'm sorry, Tyler. She lied, she couldn't have done it."

"But... but that's... that's not fair."

Narcissa peels off the paste on Tyler's back to reveal it fully healed and Snape digs a robe from Harry's trunk to lend him then the Assistant asks Tyler to speak with him in another room. Draco excuses himself to use the bathroom and Snape takes his place sitting on Harry's bed, watching his son sleep. Hermione slips into the room after Draco leaves, hovering just inside.

"Sir, what'll happen to Tyler?"

"I don't know. Typically the Ministry would deal with a situation like this, but given the current administration I expect they'd laugh him out the building if he tried asking them for help. He can stay here for now."

"Sir, do you have any other family?"

Snape turns his head to look at her coldly. "I don't see what business that is of yours, Miss Granger."

She goes pink. "I-I-I just—I didn't mean—I wasn't prying, it's just... well, Harry's my friend. I know Lily Potter's parents are dead and... well you know about her sister... and I just wondered if Harry had any other family. From you."

Snape looks away from her. "No, he doesn't," he says, his tone making it clear that the conversation is over.

* * *

"How much do you know about vampires?" the Assistant asks Tyler, the two of them in Sirius and Lupin's old room.

"Not enough apparently," Tyler says morosely arms folded over his chest and perching on the edge of the bed.

"Do you know about the side effects repeated feeding can have on a wizard?"

"Makes you tired, pale, risk of amnesia... same as with regular blood loss."

The Assistant really wishes he didn't have to say what he had to say next. "There's another side effect. One specific to magical people."

"What is it?" The Assistant doesn't answer immediately and Tyler frowns. "What? Am I going to get turned into one? I never drank from her."

"No, you won't get turned."

"Then what?"

The Assistant sighs. "It shuts down their ability to cast magic."

"What do you mean?"

"Exactly what I said. Repeated feedings from a vampire strains the human body until it kills them and wizards survive longer because of their magic, but after a while the strain is too much and in order to keep itself alive, the body shuts down what it considers unnecessary—namely, the ability to cast magic."

Tyler stares at him for a minute then says, "But it comes back, right?"

He shakes his head.

"No, but... but that can't... I can't lose my magic as well!"

"I'm sorry."

Tyler stares at him for a moment longer then turns, throws himself face down on the bed, and screams into the covers.

"Go away," Tyler tells the Assistant, his voice muffled by the pillow.

"No."

"I don't even know who you are, mister, and I'm really not in the mood for making friends right now. Leave me alone."

"You've just received some devastating news; I'm not leaving you alone and risk you hurting yourself. Besides, I'm the only person who has any idea what you're going through."

There's a pause, then Tyler asks, "A vampire stole your magic too?"

"No, I'm a werewolf. No vampire would ever feed on me. Mine was taken by a man."

"Men can't take magic."

"They can with the right runes."

There's another pause then Tyler sits up and looks at him, eyes fixing on the runes carved in the Assistant's cheeks. The Assistant lifts his hoodie, showing the ones etched into his torso as well.

"They're all over me. A month ago a Death Eater tied me down and carved them into me with a silver knife. It was slow and painful and now I can't do any magic—except to turn into a werewolf every month, which is a right bloody pisser."

"Why did he do that? Is it just because you're a werewolf?"

"No, he was pissed off because I turned him into a necklace for a year."

Tyler goggles at him. " _Why?_ "

The Assistant sits beside him. "Let me tell you a story..."

* * *

" _We're in a bed._ "

A familiar bed, Harry thinks. It smells familiar, but he can't place it exactly. He's still naked, but he can't feel chains tying him down and for the first time in a long time he's not in pain. He's warm under the heavy weight of a duvet, even with Riddle's cold pressed snug against his back. He's grateful for him, glad to have someone familiar and constant when he doesn't know where he is or what's happening. He isn't sure what it means that he's unchained and in a bed, but it scares him.

" _It's okay,_ " Riddle says softly, and Harry feels his arm wrap around his front, possessive and comforting. " _We have magic now. They can't hurt us. No one can hurt us now._ "

" _Promise?_ " he asks quietly.

" _I promise. We won't let them hurt us anymore._ "

"Harry?"

His breath hitches because he knows that voice.

" _Draco?_ "

"Harry, it's okay. You're safe now, alright? You're at home, in your bedroom."

" _But how?_ " he asks as a second familiar voice says, "I'll get Snape."

A hand touches his head and he flinches, but it just strokes at his hair.

"It's okay, no one's going to hurt you," Draco murmurs softly. "But I can't understand you, Harry. You need to speak English. Do you want water?"

He does, he realises. "Yes," he says weakly, then again because he's not sure if it's in English. "Yes."

The hand leaves him and he hears movement. "I've got a straw, I'm going to put it to your mouth now."

He still flinches when he feels it, but gets his lips around it and drinks a little. He feels some dribble out his mouth, but can't find it in him to care. He's suffered worse humiliations in the last few months. The mere fact his water is in a glass and coming through a straw is better than having it given to him in a dog bowl or, worse, forcibly poured in his mouth with an Aguamenti spell until he chokes, and that after being given none for over a day and having to beg for it.

He hears a door open and approaching footsteps, then Snape's voice: "Harry? It's... your dad. How are you feeling?"

"It doesn't hurt," he says, because it's true. "Where's Draco?"

A warm hand settles in his own, fingers curling around it. "I'm still here."

"How did I get here?"

"Lucius unchained you," Snape tells him. "You Apparated out of the Manor to my house in Cokeworth, and I brought you here. You're at home now, in Coleford, in your bedroom."

"Lucius? But he locked me up. They hurt Draco and stole my dragon and—"

"Hey, shh, it's alright. I'm okay, Harry, we both are."

"The dragon," Harry moans fearfully, and before either of them can ask what he's talking about, a glass dragon appears next to his and Draco's joined hands. He lets go to fumble for it, his other hand coming out from under the covers to touch the dragon, fingers moving over it, checking it, and he shifts his hands up to head height as if he could still look at it.

"That!" Snape snarls. "What is it, Harry? The Dark Lord used it to capture you; you should get rid of it!"

But Harry shakes his head. "It's not safe, it's not safe. I have to make it safe."

"Harry, I asked you to put spells on the house to make it safe. Have you done that?"

"It's not enough," Harry mutters and Snape's not sure he even heard him. "Won't stop him. I need goofer dust and salt and the coffin..." he trails off with a moan. "He broke it. He broke it, I need... I need somewhere... somewhere safe, somewhere safe..."

"Is he insane?" Draco asks quietly, watching Harry mutter to himself and clutch the dragon. Snape doesn't answer and when Draco looks at him he's surprised to find the man's face has gone pasty white and he's staring at the dragon. "Sir?"

"Stay with him," he orders and stalks out the room, down the hall to open the door to Sirius and Lupin's room without knocking. "Assistant, a word. Now."

The Assistant excuses himself and gets up from the bed, following Snape across the hall to James' room and looking at him curiously as he shuts the door and casts a Silencing Charm on it before speaking.

"Did you make a demon deal in your original timeline?"

Surprise flickers across the Assistant's face and he folds his arms over his chest. "Heard about that then, did you?"

"Black told me the night Dumbledore died. Did you?"

"Yes."

"Did you ever split your soul to get out of it?"

The Assistant frowns, then his eyes go wide. "He didn't!"

"I take it that's a no?"

"I can't. Between the Animancupium and the time loop, my soul is trapped in so much magic Death himself can't touch it. But it won't get him out of the deal. Has Harry really split his? He told you that?"

"No. Crowley did," Snape admits, and tells him about the deal he nearly made.

"It's called a Horcrux," the Assistant tells him. "And Crowley's right, it's dangerous. It makes the soul incredibly unstable, but not so much that Crowley won't take it. Not with just the one, anyway. You can make more than one Horcrux," he explains at Snape's confused look.

"Why would anyone want to?"

"Immortality, for one. As long as you have a Horcrux, you can't die, not really. There's not a whole lot of case studies on it, but I can tell you that dying while you have a Horcrux turns you into a less than human spirit with minimal capabilities and requires powerful magic to bring you back to life. Or rather, to give you a body again."

"Assistant, I have a feeling you're trying to make me figure something out and I'm really not in the mood. Spit it out."

"The Dark Lord made one. Several, actually. It's why he didn't die in eighty-one. He won't die until all his Horcruxes are destroyed."

"What does it mean for Harry that he's made one?"

"First off it means he killed someone willingly and without remorse, someone he wasn't told or made to kill, but chose to. But other than that it doesn't really mean a lot. It might have contributed to his unstable mental state and given his conscience a knock that makes him a little more willing to do unpleasant things, but the hounds are coming for him in May and they'll destroy the Horcrux just as much as his physical body."

"Then Crowley sticks his soul together again."

The Assistant shrugs. "Reckon so. No personal experience, but he can probably do it."

"The hounds haven't come for you," Snape points out.

"Time loop. My ten years run out May second ninety-eight."

"That's why you went back on the first."

"Bingo. My date never comes and the loop takes me out of the usual parameters of time laws, so even after ten years I don't get got. But the minute it breaks, I'm headed straight downstairs."

"Good incentive not to break it."

"You'd think, but no. I'm looking forward to getting dragged to a hell dimension if it means breaking this fucking loop."

* * *

Draco looks around when the door opens and Snape and the Assistant enter. Harry still mutters to himself and holds the dragon. The Assistant kneels by the bed and the other two watch as he starts hissing in Parseltongue.

" _Who did you kill to make it?_ "

Harry falls silent. His head shifts to look towards the Assistant. " _You're not Riddle._ "

" _No, far from. It's the Assistant. Remember me?_ "

" _Yes._ "

" _So who did you kill to make the Horcrux?_ "

There's a long pause before Harry answers, but the Assistant waits patiently.

" _Did you make one?_ "

" _No, I've never done it._ "

" _How did you know?_ "

" _Answer mine, I'll answer yours_."

Another pause, and then, " _Uncle Vernon._ "

He's not really surprised. " _Crowley told Severus when Severus went to make a deal. He never did,_ " the Assistant adds when Harry tenses, panic flitting across his face. " _You got him out a split second before they sealed it. The deal was never done._ "

" _Me?_ "

" _You don't remember? Lucius unchained you and demanded you get everyone to safety, but you took the everyone a little too literally. You didn't just teleport yourself and the Malfoys out, but you took Severus, me, James Potter, Hermione Granger, Neville Longbottom, Cid Villiers, Tyler Lyle, and Minerva McGonagall from where we were and dropped us all at Spinner's End_."

" _They're all here?_ "

" _No, Minerva and Cid went back to Hogwarts. Tyler's in the room next door and the rest of them are downstairs. You know where you are?_ "

" _Home._ "

" _Have you put protections on the house to keep us all safe? There are people outside that will hurt us if you haven't_."

Harry shifts and then says, " _We're safe_."

The Assistant conveys that assurance to Snape and Draco, then says to Harry, " _The Horcrux won't stop Crowley getting you._ "

Harry pulls the dragon closer. " _You're lying._ "

" _You sold your soul. Crowley knows where it is even when it's not all in one piece and hellhounds are enough to destroy a Horcrux._ "

" _You're lying,_ " he repeats, desperation creeping into his voice. Draco hears it.

"What are you saying to him? You're upsetting him."

"The truth does that, Draco."

"Go away," Harry says.

"You heard him, Assistant. Get out."

The Assistant gets to his feet, his hand subconsciously drifting to the gun tucked in the back of his jeans. " _Crowley will come for you, Harry. You can't run from that._ "

"I want Kiwi," Harry says when the door's shut behind the Assistant. Snape begins to rise to go to Harry's trunk in the corner of the room, but the purple bear has already appeared on the bed and Harry pulls her against his chest then, as Snape and Draco watch with surprise, black and white powder appears around the trunk, sticking to every millimetre of its surface. Snape can only assume Harry Wished for the trunk without realising it was already in the room; there was no other way he could know it was there.

"Er... what's that stuff?" Draco asks.

"Goofer dust and salt," Harry answered, holding out his dragon. "Put it inside."

Draco takes it, moving over to lay it in the trunk and asking, "Why have you covered your trunk in salt and whatever goofer dust is?"

"Protection."

"From what?" Draco pushes, but Harry doesn't answer. Curious, but unwilling to push Harry, Draco doesn't ask more and digs through the trunk for a few clothes, but as he's pulling them out he finds a small jar filled with clear liquid and—

"Oh!"

"What?" Harry says, alarmed. "What is it? What's happened?"

"Your eye! Your green one, it's in here." He hurries over to the bed and takes one of Harry's hands, pressing the jar into it. "Can you put it in?"

Harry doesn't answer, but he lets go of Kiwi and shakily starts to push himself up only for Snape to put a hand on his arm to gently push him back—then jerks his hand back with a hiss of pain as it burns and blisters like he'd touched a hot stove. He gets up, quickly opening the pot of Burn Salve still on the desk and using his unburnt hand to scoop out the last of it to slather over his palm and fingers.

"Harry, no one's going to hurt you," Draco says, wanting to comfort him but now feeling too wary to touch him. "You shouldn't have hurt him."

"I didn't mean to," Harry says shakily. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to. Dad?"

"I'm fine, Harry," he assures him but Harry still looks distressed.

"I'm going to touch your head, alright?" Draco says. "I won't hurt you."

He hesitantly lays his hand on Harry's hair and Harry tenses, but he doesn't burn him and Draco slowly moves his hand, stroking his hair comfortingly. "It's alright. You're safe now, I promise you."

Harry pulls away and gets up into a sitting position. The covers fall back but he levitates them around him as his hands fumble with the jar. He's too weak to get it open, but a Wish has it unscrewed and he carefully dips his fingers in and pulls out the eyeball. He feels for the slight protrusion that's the iris and pupil then lifts his left hand to his face, feeling for the socket and pulling up the eyelid. Draco can't help staring with morbid fascination at the empty socket and then Harry pushes the eyeball in. He blinks a few times, staring straight ahead.

"Well?"

Harry swallows, still staring ahead of him. "It's not working. I can't see."

* * *

"Harry's awake?"

The Assistant nods in answer to Tyler's question, plopping back on the bed beside him.

"Is he alright?"

"Not really. He's spent several months being tortured by Death Eaters."

"But he's not insane, right? Torture can do that, I heard. Drive you nuts."

"It can. He's not drooling and talking nonsense, but I wouldn't say he's entirely sane. He's not long woken; it's hard to tell exactly what kind of toll it's had on him just yet."

"What about physically? Is he missing fingers or anything?"

"He's blind. They took his false eye and the other has been mutilated. I haven't had much of a look at the rest of him, but he had all his fingers."

"Shit. Guess I can't complain about these burns."

"I'd say you have plenty to complain about."

Tyler gets up, wandering around the room to inspect the wardrobe and window like they're museum pieces. "How many timelines have you lived?" he asks, ignoring the issue behind the Assistant's words.

"I don't know. A lot."

"And you've learnt a lot of stuff from them, right? Just bits of information about people?"

"I have."

Tyler nods. The Assistant says nothing more. He knows what's coming and he's fine to wait until Tyler's ready to ask it. It doesn't take him long—less time than he expects, actually. Tyler doesn't look at him as he says it, standing by the window with arms folded and back to the Assistant, and he blurts the question out with the nerves of someone who knows they won't ask it if they don't say it quickly.

"Do you know who my father is?"

"Yes."

Tyler clearly doesn't expect that. He turns to looks at the Assistant with wide eyes, mouth dropping open slightly. "You do?"

The Assistant nods. "And so do you."

"I do? Who is it?"

"Dylan Swift."

Tyler gapes. "Dylan Swift? Mr Swift? As in Layla's dad and Cid's step-dad? _That_ Dylan Swift?"

"That Dylan Swift."

Tyler looks ready to faint.


	96. Chapter 96

"Well?"

Snape closes Harry's door behind him, raising an eyebrow at Lucius' demanding expression as he stands opposite him. "Well what?"

"The Dark Lord. Can he kill him?"

"Probably."

"Haven't you asked?" Lucius says with the tone of someone speaking to an idiot.

"No. He's not long been awake, Lucius, and he's just had a seizure. It can wait."

Lucius' jaw clenches. "I thought," he says tightly, "that you wanted the Dark Lord dead and myself out of this house."

"I do. I also want my son to recover from the torture you put him through."

"I didn't touch him."

"You were there."

"If you expect an apology, Severus, you won't get one. I did as I was told, just like every other Death Eater does. Just because I did what I had to in order to save my family does not mean I'm some blood traitor who's going to start hugging Mudbloods."

"Watch your tongue, Lucius," Snape warns him. "I can still toss you out to fend for yourself."

Lucius' lip curls. "You have fallen, Severus. If you care so much about the _Muggleborns_ ," he sneers, "why did you ever join the Dark Lord in the first place?"

"We all make bad choices, Lucius. I will ask Harry about the Dark Lord when he's recovered more."

"Make it soon, Severus. I want out of this house as much as you want me out. It's awfully crowded and there's a little too much filth about," he says, eyes flicking to Hermione as she leaves the bathroom. She hears his words and shoots him a dirty look, but turns away towards the stairs and heads down without a word.

* * *

"Are you sure?"

The Assistant nods.

"How can you know that for definite? Why would you even spare the time to find it out? I don't know you."

"You don't, but I knew the Tyler Lyle of my original timeline. He was my first kiss; I developed a soft spot for your counterparts. I found out about your father a few timelines later."

"But that could have just been that timeline. Things change, right? What if it's someone else this time?"

"Do you want it to be?" the Assistant asks. Tyler's brow furrows.

"What kind of question is that?"

The Assistant shrugs. "You seem unwilling to believe it's him, makes me wonder if you don't want it to be."

"No, I just... I don't know. I mean it's _weird_. That's Cid's step-dad. If he's really my father, that makes us almost brothers. It makes Layla my sister." He pauses, thinking about it, and then asks quietly, "Does Mr Swift know? Mum told me he left before she told him she was pregnant, but..."

"But she also blamed you for his leaving."

Tyler flicks his eyes to him, a flush creeping up his neck. "You know about that?"

The Assistant nods. "I also know about how she died."

Tyler's face goes ashen. "What?" he whispers.

"It wasn't your fault, Tyler. There's a reason it's called accidental magic."

"Don't tell anyone," Tyler begs. "Please, please don't tell anyone. I don't want to go to Azkaban."

"I'm not going to tell anyone, but no one would send you to Azkaban for it."

"I killed her."

"It wasn't your fault."

"Yes it was," he says then his voice drops until it's just barely audible. "I wanted her dead."

"You don't mean that."

Tyler shakes his head. "I hated her. I feel bad about it sometimes, but it's true. I hated her. She didn't want me. She never looked after me, she spent all her time drinking, and she was always screaming at me. She never hit me or anything, but she scared me and the day she... I thought she was going to kill me. She kept screaming and waving this scotch bottle around and I wanted her dead. I'm glad she died."

The Assistant looks at him sadly. "Really?"

"Yes. I feel guilty sometimes for killing her, especially like I did, but I don't feel bad that she's dead."

"I don't believe you."

Tyler shrugs, folding his arms over his chest. "Then don't, but it's true. You didn't answer my question. Does Mr Swift know about me?"

The Assistant doesn't push the issue, though he fully believes Tyler's lying, trying to convince himself of it so that he doesn't have to deal with the guilt. The Assistant can't blame him for such an effort; he would probably do the same if he could.

"I can't say for sure. In the timeline I found out about it, and the one timeline I intervened early and introduced you to him, he didn't know."

"Does he—" Tyler begins, but cuts himself off, hesitates, tries again. "Do you think... Mr Swift, would he... I mean, if I'm really..."

The Assistant takes pity on him. "Again, I can't say for sure, but from the two times I've seen it, yes, he gladly accepts you as a son."

"Even if I've got no magic? The Swifts are an old pureblood family and so is Cid's mum's family. I know they're a neutral family as far as the war's concerned, but I don't know what they think of squibs. That's basically what I am now, isn't it?"

"For all intents and purposes," the Assistant agrees reluctantly, "we are. I honestly don't know, Tyler. I wish I could say it doesn't matter, but squibs are a touchy issue with old pureblood families and I don't know the Swifts and their stance on the matter."

* * *

"Narcissa, could you take a look at Harry for me?"

Narcissa lowers her teacup, sat in the dining room alone and flicking through an old _Witch Weekly_. "You did everything you could for him earlier, Severus. There's nothing to be done for his old injuries."

"I know," Snape says with a scowl at the thought. "It's about his eyesight. He's put in another false eye, a basic one, but he still can't see. I suspect the magical nerve paths have been damaged."

Narcissa frowns. "I was a midwife, Severus, not a neurohealer. I've got generalised healer's training, but that's a specialist area."

"I realise that whatever the problem is you won't be able to fix it, but can't you at least find out?"

"I'll have a look, but I can make no promises."

"Of course. Thank you."

"I'll come up when I've finished my tea."

* * *

Sat on the sitting room sofa, Hermione watches Snape head back upstairs and looks over at the dining room then down at her knees, rubbing her hands over her legs to brush the crinkles out of her jeans, then stands up.

"Back in a minute," she mutters to Neville and goes to the dining room, pausing just inside the door as Narcissa gives her a cursory glance, then takes a deep breath and closes the door, going to one of the chairs and sitting. Narcissa watches her with a half curious, half disdainful expression on her face that Hermione ignores.

"I heard you talking to Professor Snape," she says.

Narcissa says nothing and sips at her tea.

"I know you're a Malfoy and that means—"

"Black," Narcissa interrupts.

"Sorry?"

"I'm a Black, not a Malfoy."

"Oh. I... sorry, I didn't..." she trails off, but sets her face and carries on. "I realise I'm not someone you give a damn about, but I heard you tell Professor Snape you were a midwife and I—" she falters, looking down briefly before forcing herself to meet Narcissa's cold gaze and pressing ahead. "I need to know if there's a spell to—to tell if you're pregnant," she finishes rapidly.

"Of course there is," Narcissa says snobbishly and Hermione's cheeks go pink.

"Please could you tell me it?"

Narcissa says nothing. She sips at her tea and stays quiet for so long Hermione's about to say it doesn't matter and get up to leave, then Narcissa puts her cup down and draws her wand.

"Stand up," she says sharply. Hermione stands stiffly, half convinced she's about to get hexed, but Narcissa merely waves her wand in a slow downwards curve and murmurs, " _Confirmare vitaminvita_."

A faint scarlet glow surrounds Hermione. She looks down at herself and claps both hands over her mouth when she sees an orange blur over her stomach. Narcissa stows her wand and picks up her cup again.

"Congratulations, Miss Granger, you're with child."

There's a heavy thump from outside the door.

* * *

Harry lies on his back, staring blindly up at the ceiling. He still has the eye in despite it not working. He has Kiwi clutched in his right arm and feels Riddle pressed against that side, arm slung over his stomach, and Harry leans his head to one side, pressing his cheek to the cold forehead. His left hand sticks out under the covers, fingers loosely curled around one of Draco's hands while Draco's other hand combs through Harry's hair. He doesn't react when he hears a knock at the door, but Draco's hand pauses and Harry hears him shift slightly.

"Come in."

The door opens and Harry hears light footsteps. He knows Snape's in the room, though he's not sure where, and he has to wait until someone speaks before the newcomer is identified.

"Mother," Draco greets, surprised.

"Draco." Harry listens to her approach the bed then she speaks directly to him. "Harry, Severus has asked me to see if I can find out why you can't see. I'm going to cast a few spells on you; they won't hurt, but you may feel some warmth or tingling around your head and eyes."

Harry nods slightly to show he's heard and feels Riddle shift against his side, pressing closer, slinging a leg over Harry's and murmuring a promise. " _She hurts us, we will hurt her back._ "

* * *

Neville wakes up on the sofa. For a moment he stares up at the ceiling, confused, then he sits up so fast he almost bashes heads with James, who sits by him looking vaguely worried. Lucius is in an armchair looking bored.

"Hermione!"

"She's gone," James says. "She Apparated, but didn't say where she was going and Narcissa—" Lucius clears his throat and James glances at him then amends, "Ms Black wouldn't say what happened. Are you alright?"

"No," Neville says weakly, lying back. "I don't think I am."

* * *

"Well?" Draco asks the moment Narcissa finishes and puts her wand away.

"I don't know about the nerves, but I'm almost certain there's damage to the occipital lobe."

"Can you fix it?"

"No," Narcissa answers without hesitation.

"I'm going to be blind the rest of my life," Harry says quietly.

" _What little there is left,_ " Riddle murmurs.

"I'm afraid so."

Snape's jaw tightens and he turns and stalks out the room. Draco looks at Harry sadly, stroking his hair again. Narcissa lays a hand on Draco's shoulder and squeezes gently.

"I'm sorry."

* * *

"Stop that," Lucius snaps at Neville, who pauses in the middle of pacing to glance at him. "You're irritating me."

Neville glares at him, then turns and stalks into the kitchen, slamming the door shut behind him. Lucius sighs, fingers combing through James' hair as he sits on the floor at his feet.

"What do you think happened?" James asks him.

"I really don't care," Lucius replies and nudges him with his foot, hand leaving his hair. "Go ask Severus if the boy is ready to kill the Dark Lord yet. Remind him that the child was perfectly capable of Apparating a dozen people; he should be able to murder his mortal enemy."

James goes to Harry's room first, but only Draco's still in there with him.

"Is he awake?"

Draco nods and Harry turns his head slightly towards them. "James?"

"Yeah, it's me."

"Where's Sirius?"

James swallows. The memory of Sirius' dead body (heavy, he remembers, and still warm and James could almost convince himself that he was just sleeping) and Harry's haunting chant of _it's not real_ is suddenly sharp in his mind, like it happened only hours ago. There's an ache in his chest, a pang of loss and a sting of hatred for the ones that killed the only friend he had left, and over that a tangle of guilt because _Sirius Black was a blood traitor, precious, he deserved to die; he couldn't be taught the error of his ways, not like you can._

And he's confused now. Master's betrayed the Dark Lord, but he still calls Hermione Mudblood and he's not sorry for what he's done, and James doesn't know what it means for him. He's a traitor too, he supposes, but he's not sure how he's supposed to treat everyone else, especially Harry. He still loves him, but he's the traitor's bastard, the Mudblood whore's bastard, and that means James isn't meant to ( _it's a weakness, precious, a fault in your upbringing, but you will learn soon enough that it's wrong, that the child is not someone to be loved_ ), but Master saved him so did that make it okay? After all, they're all traitors now.

"You took him away," Harry says, and the part of James that still resists Lucius hates the accusation he hears in Harry's voice. "Where did you take him?"

"I took him to the Ministry. I left him outside for them to find."

"Why?"

"Master told me to."

Harry turns his head further, mutilated face looking straight at James. "They transferred your Bond back to Lucius?"

"Yes. I'm a Death Eater now. I had to kill Sam."

He thinks Harry looks sad but it's hard to tell when the only eye he has is blank and unseeing.

"It's good Mum's dead."

"Harry!" Draco cries, horrified. "Don't say that."

"It's true," Harry says, voice cracking, and tears spill from his left eye, the right no longer able to produce them. "She'd hate us if she could see what we've become. Her child and her husband, Death Eaters and murderers. I'm glad she's dead. That way she can't hate me."

"She wouldn't hate you," Draco says, but Harry pulls his hand away and turns on his side, putting his back to him and hugging Kiwi tight to his chest. Draco turns to look pleadingly at James for help, but he's already left, shutting the door behind him.

James leans against Harry's door, closing his eyes and exhaling shakily, shaking his head like he can rid himself of the sudden memory of Lily on the day Harry was born, her gorgeous green eyes sparkling as she held the tiny pink bundle in her arms.

"Look, James," she'd breathed. "Isn't he beautiful?"

And James had smiled and nodded, kissed his wife on the head and laid his hand lightly over the tiny head topped with a mess of dark hair, and replied, "Just like his mother."

It makes him sick to remember, knowing how much Lily had loved and adored her child, because he thinks Harry's right that she would probably hate them both now.

Snape is in James' room, the bed transfigured into a table on which Snape has a potions kit that he looks through with a scowl, muttering to himself as he checks what ingredients he has that can brew something. He's stressed and brewing helps with that, but he has to make do with what he has left from everything bought back in the summer.

Narcissa is there too and she scowls and looks away when James enters. James pretends not to notice; he knows she hates him for things he has no control over, but she's his Master's ex-wife and he's to do whatever he can to not to offend or upset her, or suffer the Cruciatus for his trouble.

"Have you asked Harry about killing the Dark Lord?" he asks Snape.

"No, and you can tell Lucius that next time he wants to pester me he can do it himself instead of sending his lapdog."

James doesn't even argue with the word. It's too much effort to fight everyone who sees him as Lucius Malfoy's pet and pointless besides; it's true.

"It wouldn't be that difficult," James persists, knowing his words are only going to piss Snape off, but they're his orders and he follows them. "He got all of us to your house, he can—"

Snape slams his hand down and looks up, face furious and bits of spittle flying from his mouth as he speaks. "Do not tell me what my son can or cannot do, Potter. I will decide when the issue of the Dark Lord may be brought up, not you and certainly not Lucius. Now get out before I throw you out."

James hesitates. Part of him—the part of him that's Prongs, one of the Marauders, a prankster and cocky Gryffindor and primary enemy of Snivellus—wants to stand his ground and argue, but the rest of him—the part that remembers a dark cellar and pain and orders whispered in his ear by a voice that terrified him even when he craved to hear it—just wants to go back downstairs and seek comfort from the only person that doesn't seem to hate him. So he turns and leaves, because it's easy to forget everything else when he can kneel at his Master's feet and give himself over to the feel of familiar hands in his hair and a familiar thigh under his cheek.

"Severus, have you thought about what's going to happen next?" Narcissa asks, watching him eventually set out a handful of ingredients and light a fire under the cauldron taken from Harry's trunk.

"You'll have to be a little more specific, Narcissa. What exactly do you mean by 'next'?"

"I mean the next twenty-four hours. The next twelve even. It's—" she flicks her sleeve back to look at her watch "—just after two and you've got a house full of people who either have nowhere to go or are adamant on staying anyway, and who mostly dislike or outright hate each other. If you intend for us all to stay the night, you're going to have to do some abrupt house rearrangements and find more food. I checked the cupboards; you have two tins of soup, a handful of pasta, three teabags, and half a bottle of vodka."

He knows it's ridiculous, but her last few words please him. If the brewing doesn't make him feel better, half a bottle of vodka might.

"We've three bedrooms; we can find room for everyone."

"Or you could insist they leave. Longbottom and the Granger girl don't need to stay—they've clearly managed this long on their own—and neither does the Assistant. He's perfectly capable of looking after himself and he's of no use to us." She pauses the continues in a colder voice, "I care no more for James Potter than you do, but I suspect Harry won't be happy if we sent him back to Hogwarts for the Dark Lord to kill him."

"'We' can do nothing with Potter."

"Oh, Lucius will send him away if I tell him too. I can assure you of that."

Snape looks over from cutting up daisy roots. "You still have him wrapped around your little finger then?"

"I've no idea what you mean, Severus."

Snape frowns. "You should be careful, Narcissa. Lucius may still be smitten with you right now, but when it passes he will not respond kindly to being led on."

He knows instantly that he's said the wrong thing. Her expression hardens and her blue eyes turn icy. He has to stop himself stepping back.

"I have made it perfectly clear," she says in a voice that could freeze steam, "that I will never take Lucius as my lover again. If he continues to try and curb my favour out of some hope to the contrary or through a sense of guilt, that is no fault of mine, but if he expects me not to take advantage of his willingness to please me if it means I get that man out of my sight, then he is a bigger fool than I thought. I have already suffered the embarrassment of discovering my husband kept a man in our cellar and then to have him choose to keep that man as some kind of pet; I will not endure further indignity of staying in his presence anymore than I absolutely have to."

Snape clears his throat and reminds himself that he really shouldn't comment on other people's relationships when he's got so little personal experience. "Of course," he says weakly, and is glad when Narcissa looks away, clearly having nothing more to say, and he can turn back to his potion and continue brewing in a now slightly tense silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Confirmare vitaminvita is a joining of confirmare vitam in vita, which literally translates from Latin as 'confirm life in life'.


	97. Chapter 97

"Who the bleedin' heck are you?"

Hermione looks up then hurriedly gets to her feet, wiping the tears from her face as a woman who looks to be in her thirties steps into the dishevelled room. She's dressed in a tight leather mini-skirt, an equally tight leather jacket, and knee high boots, has a handbag slung over one shoulder, and is wearing so much make-up Hermione instantly assumes she's a whore, then silently chides herself for being so judgemental.

"Sorry," she apologises. "I didn't know—I'm going now."

"No, hang on, I asked you a question, girl. Who are you? Did Toby bring you?"

Hermione pauses. She isn't sure why she came to the Assistant's dilapidated home when she ran from Harry's house. She just wanted to get away, to spend a little while processing what she just discovered, and knew she wouldn't be able to get a minute alone in the crowded house.

"No one brought me," she tells the woman. "I just... found it."

"Really." She doesn't even try to disguise her disbelief. "Nice dressed girl like you just happens to find me and Toby's little hovel."

"Well, no," Hermione admits. "Erm... Toby... did bring me. Earlier, but he... um, he's not here now."

"Where is he?"

"Uh... visiting a friend."

"Shit, he's gone back to that tosser what carved him up, ain't he?"

"What?"

"Preston or whatever his name is." She clucks her tongue, moving further into the room and tossing her bag down on the sofa. "Y'know I thought only us girls got trapped in abusive relationships, but man, Toby's got it bad. You know about it?"

"About Toby?"

"Yeah, and this bloke, the one that raped him and shit. He said he hated him, was glad to get rid of him, but only when he was sober, y'know? Minute he got some dope in him..." she whistles. "Like a monk talking about God. Worshipped the bastard. Said sex with him was like being made whole. Can't say I really got it. I ain't never had good sex, to be honest with you, but... well, not sure it was really him talking anyway, reckon it was just the dope. But you probably don't know nothing about that," she says, rubbing at her nose and looking over Hermione. "Has he then? Gone back to him?"

She sounds genuinely worried and Hermione shakes her head. "No. It's a different friend."

"Really? 'Cause Toby said he didn't really have no friends. Did mention some bloke called Severus or something once. Weird name, if you ask me. What's yours?"

"Hermione."

"I'm Melissa. What you crying about?"

"I'm pregnant," she blurts out without even thinking about it, and then bursts into tears again.

* * *

"Bloody Merlin!" Tyler cries, jerking back from the bathroom door he just opened. Harry stands on the other side, looking unsteady on his feet and with more than a hint of fear in his mostly startled expression. Tyler can't help but stare at him, knowing it's rude but unable to drag his eyes from the mangled mess of his right eye and the puckered scar running down his face. He's dressed in a basic black robe that looks ridiculously large on his thin body.

"Who's there?"

"Tyler. Tyler Lyle," he answers, and Harry visibly relaxes, but only slightly.

"Harry!" Draco's voice calls from the room nearest, panic evident. "Harry, where have you—there you are. What are you doing?"

"I need the toilet," Harry answers without turning his head.

"You should have woken me."

"I'm not a baby, I can use the toilet without help even if I am blind," Harry says snappishly and Draco looks surprised at the outburst.

"Sorry. I didn't... are you going to get out of his way then, Lyle?"

Tyler shoots Draco a glare as Harry steps aside, but leaves the bathroom so Harry can shuffle inside and shut the door behind him. There's no click of the lock being turned.

"Something you want to say?"

Draco flicks his eyes up from the bite scars on Tyler's throat as the other boy folds his arms over his chest, his shoulders tense, entire posture defensive.

"I'm sorry about Marcus."

Tyler clearly doesn't expect that, mouth dropping slightly in surprise before he manages to catch himself. "Yeah," he mutters.

"How's your back?"

"Fine. Snape's salve sorted it. Hardly even a scar."

"Good."

* * *

"I thought it would be better."

Melissa snorts. "Everyone does. It's the media, y'know? Hyping it up, making it into the great big thing that's supposed to be amazing, but when you get down to it it's just a lot of mess and awkwardness."

Hermione sniffs, wiping her nose on a tissue from Melissa's handbag. It's clean but smells faintly of cigarettes. "It shouldn't even have happened. Not like that, I mean. I'm not a _prude_ and I've... you know, I've thought about... doing it in odd places, but the first time was meant to be—"

"Special."

Hermione nods. "We were just both so worried about everything and we had no idea what we were doing, and when he kissed me I just wanted to forget about everything else and it sort of just... happened. And I do love him, I do, but it was just so awkward and I realised that it's not... I don't think I'm _in_ love with him, if that makes sense. I think he's the same. He didn't really argue with me when I suggested we split up. He did a bit, but it was more like it was because he thought he should rather than because he really wanted to, and he looked relieved when I said we could still be friends. But now..."

"Now you got a baby."

Fresh tears spill down Hermione's cheeks. "I can't keep it. I don't want to keep it. I'm barely eighteen, I can't be a mother."

"Plenty of girls your age raising babies, love, and you can always give it up for adoption. I did. Bit younger than you, though. Sixteen. Had a drunken hook up with me best mate's boyfriend."

Hermione shakes her head. "I can't. My life at the minute... I can't spend nine months pregnant. I don't even have a home."

"You know, a girl in your situation, the council'll fix you up with a place pretty quick. Get you child benefits and shit. What about your bloke, this Neville? Reckon he'd stick around, help you with it?"

She doesn't even have to think about it. "Yes. Neville would never abandon me like this, but it's irrelevant. I can't... I just can't. I have to get rid of it. I never wanted to be a mum this young. I was going to get a job, work on my career, get myself set up and not even think about marriage or kids until I was thirty at least." She sniffs and adds bitterly, "Not that that'll happen now. My blood's all wrong."

"Blood?" Melissa repeats, confused. "You got some blood disease or something?"

"No, I... it doesn't matter. I should really go. Thank you for talking to me, Melissa."

"Yeah, alright. You be careful, Hermione. And hey, if you see Toby, tell him to look after himself and stay away from that Preston bloke, alright?"

* * *

Draco bursts into the bathroom when he hears a dull bang and a pained cry from inside. Harry's on the floor, shaking wet hands clutching the rim of the sink as the tap runs, but even as Draco hurries to crouch by him Harry's hands slip down and he collapses sideways against him.

"Draco?"

"Yeah, it's me. You okay? Are you hurt?"

"What happened?" Snape's voice says and Draco looks around to see him stood in the doorway.

"He fell, but he's not hurt, I don't think. I can't see any injuries. Harry, did you hurt yourself?"

Harry's hand curls in Draco's robes, weakly gripping the fabric. "I can't stand up. They took away my food and they hurt me and now I'm broken and I can't stand up."

"You're not broken," Draco tells him. "You can rest and eat and you'll be able to stand just fine when you're better. I'm going to pick you up and take you into your room now, alright?"

"No."

"You can't stay here, Harry."

"I want a bath. Please. Let me have a bath; I just want to be clean. Properly clean and I'm home now, aren't I? In Coleford, in my house and I want a bath. _Please._ "

Draco looks around at Snape for help, who points his wand at the bath tub, which promptly starts gushing water from the taps as the plug drops into place. Snape leaves, letting Draco help Harry as needing but saying to call if they need him.

"Is the door shut?" Harry asks.

"Yes."

"But you haven't locked it, have you?"

"No."

"And it's just you? There's no one else? Not Dad or anyone?"

"It's just us. Do you, um... do you want some help?"

After a moment's hesitation, Harry shakes his head, but his hands tremble as he undoes his robes and after several failed attempts to unbutton them Draco reaches forwards to help, only for Harry to jerk away the moment he touches him, letting out a frantic, "Don't!"

Draco pulls his hands back, hating the pure fear in Harry's voice and hurt that it's directed at him even though he knows it's not Harry's fault, that after everything of course he's going to be scared. He just wishes Harry wasn't blind so he could see _him_ and know it's not someone who wants to hurt him.

"I'm not going to hurt you, Harry."

Harry sighs, shaky, still scared, looking so small sat on the bathroom floor wearing robes that drown him. He holds out a trembling hand and Draco looks at it confused for a moment, then hesitantly puts his own hand in it and fingers curl weakly around him. Harry says nothing and Draco doesn't know what to say, but it seems his hand is enough. Harry lets out another little sigh—less scared, more like he's convinced himself, just a little, that he's okay—and his robes unbutton themselves and fall away. He lets go of Draco only when he needs to free his hand to fully de-robe.

Draco swallows as he watches, freshly disturbed by the injuries and skeletal figure, noting the way Harry's tremors increase with each bit of skin that he bares and how he hesitates before pulling the robes away completely. His hands reach towards the bath tub, feeling for it and curling over the rim. It's only half filled with water and little coils of steam drift up from it.

"Do you need help?" Draco asks gently. "I won't hurt you, I promise."

Harry's head turns to him slightly and his hands tighten on the rim of the bath tub then he nods hesitantly.

* * *

Hermione Apparates into the sitting room, where she finds only Lucius and James. Lucius gives her a scathing look which she ignores and James merely glances at her before closing his eyes again. He kneels at Lucius' feet, Lucius' hands in his hair, and looking so utterly content to be there that Hermione can't help forgetting about her own situation for a minute as her brain tries to process her ex-Defence professor submitting to Voldemort's most loyal Death Eater.

"Do you have something to say?" Lucius asks and his hateful tone brings her back to herself.

"Not to you," she says, and stalks towards the kitchen. She pauses just inside when she sees Neville, but even with an unpleasant conversation hanging overhead she'd rather face him than Lucius, so she shuts the door behind her as Neville gets to his feet.

* * *

" _Yes._ "

He's up to his neck in blissfully warm water and the simple sensation of it on his skin draws a soft moan from him. Riddle's behind him, sat on edge of the tub, legs either side of Harry's body as he rests against the back of the tub. He's as pleased with their position as Harry is, but even with his still fully clothed legs in the water he's as cold as he always is.

"Feel good?" asks Draco, sat on the floor still, and Harry makes a small noise of affirmation. "It must have been a while since..." he trails off, realising Harry doesn't need reminding of why it's been so long since he had a bath, but Harry just slides his hand out of the tub expectantly and Draco puts his own in it. "Why do you do this? Hold my hand?"

"I need to feel you," he says quietly. "I need to know you're real and not just a voice inside my head."

"Do you still hear it? The voice?"

Cold legs squeeze against Harry's side and he wraps his other arm around himself, drawing his knees up until they almost break the surface. "Yes," he murmurs gladly. "He's always here."

Draco frowns at his tone, but he supposes that after four months of torture in which the voice in his head was probably the only one to say anything nice, it's no surprise if Harry's fond of it. Really, Draco thinks, he should just be grateful Harry's not completely insane.

"IT'S MY CHILD TOO!"

Harry starts at the shouted words, spilling water over the side of the tub and drawing his legs closer, face turning towards the door, hand tightening on Draco's.

"Who was that?"

"Sounded like Longbottom. I'll go and see—"

"No! Don't leave me, Draco, please."

Draco settles back after half rising and lifts his other hand, placing it over Harry's, enclosing the chilly and bony hand. "I won't leave you," he says softly.

* * *

Hermione and Neville stand opposite each other in the kitchen, both flushed with anger and glaring at one another. Hermione's arms are folded over her chest and Neville's fists are clenched at his side, and they both jump when the door opens. Snape stands there and the look on his face makes both teenagers feel like they're suddenly back at Hogwarts and caught in the Potion Master's wrath.

"What is going on here?"

They both look away and neither of them answer.

"If I heard correctly," Lucius says from his chair, "the Mudblood is pregnant and wishes to rid herself of the child. Longbottom is showing a modicum of pureblood pride and wants to keep it."

Neville looks horrified at receiving something akin to approval from Lucius Malfoy; Hermione merely looks mortified. When Snape turns to look at Lucius, he's got a smug expression on his face, clearly enjoying the drama that's playing out.

"Not that it would be any great loss," Lucius adds in a drawl. "It's only a Mudblood's child after all."

"It's a pureblood's child as well," Narcissa says, making her way down the stairs. "As I recall, you objected to the abortion of those, Lucius."

Lucius' scowls. "The Longbottoms are blood traitors, Narcissa."

"Hmm."

Snape looks back to Hermione. "Is this true?"

"I don't see what business that is of yours, Professor Snape," she says snottily, trying to pretend she's not red with embarrassment and on the brink of tears again.

Snape feels distinctly uncomfortable with the entire situation. During his teaching career he had a total of two Slytherin girls come to him and admit they were pregnant; he took them straight to Madam Pomfrey and let her deal with it, involving himself as little as he could get away with while being the students' Head of House. So he decides to follow Hermione's lead and make his tone as biting as possible.

"It's not. But there is enough bad blood in this house without you two arguing."

"The only bad blood in the house is hers," Lucius murmurs. Snape whirls on him, drawing his wand and flinging a hex before Lucius had time to even look surprised. Lucius makes a strangled noise as he suddenly finds his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth and he glares at Snape.

"You input is not needed, Lucius. Keep your mouth shut and stay out of things that don't concern you."

Snape turns back to Hermione even as James draws his wand and silently casts _Finite Incantatem_ on Lucius.

"We're done arguing," Hermione says before Snape can speak. "There's nothing left to say."

She moves towards the door and Snape steps aside to let her pass, but Neville rushes over to grab her arm.

"You're not killing my child!"

Hermione jerks out of his grip. "I'm not killing any child, I'm getting rid of a non-sentient collection of cells. And it's not your choice!"

"Yes it is!"

"It's not," Narcissa says sharply, making them all look at her. Hermione's mouth opens into an 'o' of surprise, Neville's brow furrows, and Snape's eyebrows rise. Narcissa's gaze is on Neville. "Until you have a uterus, Mr Longbottom, you have no say in what a woman does with her body."

"It's not her body, it's the child's—"

_SMACK!_

The entire house seems to fall silent in the echo of Hermione's slap. Neville slowly lifts a hand to his cheek, an expression of pure shock on his face. Narcissa's face is blank but there's a glint in her eyes. Lucius looks vaguely amused. James straightens, trying to peer over the sofa at what's happening until Lucius lays a hand on his head and gently pushes him down. Snape looks like he'd rather be anywhere but standing so close to the utterly furious Hermione.

"I am _not_ some incubator for holding children," Hermione says, so angry the words come out as little more than a whisper and shake with every syllable. "My body is mine, whatever might be in it, and you, Neville Longbottom, have absolutely no say in what I do with it."

She turns and stalks out, heading up the stairs. Tyler stands at the top of the stairs and he skitters back, pressing himself to the wall to get out of her way, but when she reaches for the bathroom door he calls out, "Harry's in there."

Hermione's hand drops to her side. "Oh."

The Assistant steps out of Sirius and Lupin's room, clearing his throat. "I realise you've lost the dramatic flair of storming off, but if you want to shut yourself in somewhere you can use this room."

"I think it was mostly about the dramatic flair," she admits, but approaches and looks in the room anyway. "And getting away from Neville. I never thought he could say something so misogynistic!"

The Assistant gestures towards the bed and she goes to it, sitting on it and punching the covers. He leans against the wall, watching.

"You know it's a pureblood thing, don't you? I'm not denying it's misogynistic," he adds quickly, "but the whole reason abortion's illegal in the wizarding world is because our numbers are so small compared to the Muggles. They don't want to lose any potential wizards, even if they come from Muggleborns."

"Malfoy seemed pretty against the idea of a _Mudblood_ having a child."

"Lucius is being confrontational because his world's been turned upside down and, though he'd never admit it even to himself, he's scared. He might disapprove of you, but Neville's a pureblood and even Lucius wouldn't condone the abortion of a half-blood child. He'd still see it as lesser than the purebloods, but it's from magical heritage so it's not completely unworthy. In his eyes."

"I get that," she says. "I hate it, but I've grown up enough to know you can't change the beliefs of people like him, but it doesn't excuse Neville."

"No, but even in light families like the Longbottoms there's the belief that any child is precious. Like I said, our numbers are small. The thought of aborting a potential wizard would horrify most purebloods and even a lot of half-bloods."

"But I suppose aborting Muggle children is fine," she says angrily.

"To someone like Lucius, yes, but to people like the Longbottoms, no. They'd have been told only that abortion was wrong and unforgivable, no matter who the parents are."

"He _was_ shocked when I said abortion was legal in the Muggle world," she admits, "but I still can't believe he would say something like _that_. He's never shown any kind of sexism before and then he just completely disregards me because I happen to be... I've never been so angry in my life!"

She punches the bed again and the Assistant just watches calmly until her anger begins to fade.

"I don't know how to get one," she says in a quiet voice. "I'm not registered with a GP anymore and I'm not sure if I can just walk in somewhere and ask for it. I've lost so much connection with the Muggle world over the last few years."

"I expect how to get an abortion wasn't something you ever looked into anyway, but, um... you know that just because something's illegal doesn't mean no one's doing it."

"Well of course," she says with a frown, then realises what he's implying and the frown deepens. "Back-alley abortions are really dangerous."

"I'm not talking back alley abortions," he says. "Not literally anyway. There are licensed healers who perform them on the sly, or healers who lost their licenses for it but continue to perform them anyway. In sterile, safe conditions."

"How do you know all this?" she asks with a touch of suspicion.

He rubs at a stubble covered jaw, looking sheepish. "I've knocked up a few women in my time who didn't want kids. But I happen to know a lady who does abortions. Have a think about it and if you want me to get in touch with her for you, let me know."

"Is that safe, given the current climate?"

He nods. "I can promise you it'll be fine. She is a pureblood, but she won't turn you over or anything like that, I assure you."

"I'll think about it. Oh, by the way, I left earlier and went back to your... um... house. Melissa was there. She asked me to tell you to look after yourself and stay away from Preston."

He looks surprised at first then his expression darkens and he tugs at the collar around his throat. "No problem there," he mutters and despite her curiosity, his expression makes her decide it's best not to ask.


	98. Chapter 98

"I don't want to get out."

Draco smiles at Harry's words. "You'll get all wrinkled."

"It's warm and nice."

"We're hogging the bathroom. Someone's going to want to use it soon; I'm starting to need a piss."

Harry's hand slips from his and he sits forward. "I'll get out."

Draco frowns, getting the feeling he's said something wrong but not sure what. "Harry—"

"Where's my robe?"

He reaches for it, casting a quick drying charm to rid it of the water that spilled over the side. "I've got it. Do you want help getting out?"

Harry shakes his head but he makes no move to get up. He draws his knees up and the water in the tub vanishes. Draco blinks and then the robe in his hand disappears and suddenly Harry's dry and dressed. Draco helps him out of the bath and back to the bedroom, then leaves him to climb into the bed as he returns.

Harry's still alone when a tentative knock comes at his door. He lies in his bed, holding Kiwi, and he jumps slightly at the noise. He hesitates, then asks, "Who is it?"

"Hermione. Can I come in?"

"Yes."

He hears the door open and soft footsteps crossing the floor then feels the bed depress slightly as she sits next to him, not quite touching but close enough he can feel the heat from her and he can't help shifting away slightly.

"Are you—I mean... how are you feeling?"

He shrugs. "Neville was shouting earlier. Do you know why?"

Hermione looks down at her hands, twisting them in her lap. She glances towards the still open door and gets up to go to it.

"Where are you going?"

"Just to shut the door."

He holds Kiwi a little tighter but doesn't say anything until she sits back down, this time on the second bed.

"He was shouting because... because I'm pregnant."

His head turns towards her with an expression of utter surprise, mouth dropping open and eyebrows jumping, and he blurts out, "With a baby?"

It's her turn to look surprised then she giggles as he flushes and stutters an apology.

"Obviously a baby," he mutters. "I'm—really? You're sure?"

She nods then remembers he can't see her. "Ms Black did a spell and I'm... well, yes. I'm sure."

"Why was Neville shouting then? Does he not want one?" Before she can answer he adds, "He is the dad, isn't he?"

"Of course," she says and he doesn't miss the offended tone.

"I didn't mean—I know you wouldn't cheat or—I just meant... you know I'm not very good at noticing things and we haven't seen each other in a while and I just, y'know... I didn't know if there was... someone else."

"There's not. There's not even me and Neville anymore. After... we split up. We decided we were better as friends."

"But you've got a baby so are you—"

The door opens and he cuts off, clutching Kiwi closer and demanding, "Who's there?"

"It's just me," Draco's voice replies. "What are you doing in here, Granger?"

"Having a conversation, Malfoy. Didn't your parents teach you it's rude to enter a room without knocking?"

He doesn't answer her. "Harry, are you alright?"

"I'm fine. We're just talking."

"Do you want me to stay?"

"No. It's a bit private."

Draco doesn't look convinced but he doesn't argue. "Shout if you need me."

"He's very protective of you," Hermione remarks when Draco's left.

"He won't hurt me."

"I don't believe he would. You know I wouldn't either, don't you?"

"Even though I'm a horrible Death Eater?"

"You're not a horrible Death Eater."

"Yes, I am," he says, fumbling to pull his left sleeve up and push his arm out. "It's still there, isn't it? They cut it up, but it's still there."

She looks at his thin forearm where the Dark Mark is inked into his skin but covered in several long, vicious looking scars.

"I killed Dumbledore."

"I know."

He wraps both arms around Kiwi and draws her close to his chest. "Don't you hate me?"

"You did it for Sirius, didn't you? Did You Know Who threaten to kill him if you didn't join the Death Eaters?"

"I couldn't protect him," Harry whispers, pressing his face to Kiwi's fur. "I couldn't save him. I hurt so many people to keep him safe and it wasn't enough. The Dark Lord killed him. He's gone, Hermione. I couldn't save him."

She moves to kneel in front of him. "It's not your fault, Harry," she tells him softly, reaching for his hands only to have him jerk away the moment she touches him. Her initial burst of hurt turns to guilt when his head snaps up and she sees the fear on his face.

"I won't hurt you," she says and this time when she touches him he tenses but doesn't pull away. "It wasn't your fault Sirius died."

"Why don't you hate me?"

"Because you're my friend. Because you're still the little boy who saved me from a troll when I was twelve."

"No, I'm not. I mean, I did but... I'm not that person anymore."

"So you wouldn't save me if a troll burst in right now?"

"Of course I would!"

"Then you are still that person."

"I've done bad things, Hermione. Don't you think I deserve to be in Azkaban?"

"You're not a bad person, Harry. You don't believe all that pureblood crap, do you? You don't believe Muggles and Muggleborns are scum or that people like me should be catalogued and locked up."

"No, but—"

"But nothing. You did what you thought you had to to protect someone your care about. And you've been hurt." She lifts a hand to gingerly touch the jagged scar beneath his right eye and he flinches. "Whatever you've done, I think you've been punished for it. Don't you?"

He reaches up and takes her hand, pulling it down but holding it in his own. "Why was Neville shouting?" he asks, wanting to get away from their discussion of him.

She starts to pull her hand away but his grip tightens slightly—nowhere close enough to stop her, but enough to say he doesn't want to let go—and she leaves it there. "Because I want to get rid of the baby and he doesn't."

"Why do you want to get rid of it?"

"I'm not ready to be a mother. I'm too young, I've got no home, no income. I haven't even finished my education, and the world's all wrong at the moment. It would be stupid of me to consider having a baby right now even if I wanted one."

"Why have you got no home?" he asks, alarmed. "Did something happen?"

She glances towards the door and draws her wand, casting a Silencing Charm before she answers him. "Neville and I decided to go looking for the Horcruxes instead of going back to Hogwarts this year. I knew it would be dangerous and I'd told my parents a lot about you and him, and I didn't want the Death Eaters going after them for information, so I... I modified their memories to think they're different people and had them move to Australia and forget me."

"I... that's, um... it's good they're safe," he finishes weakly, not sure what he's supposed to say.

"I hope so." She sighs shakily, squeezing his hand gently.

"Why is the world all wrong? What's happened?"

She tells him about the Death Eaters taking over, about Muggleborns being accused of stealing magic somehow and getting hauled into the Ministry for questioning, their wands forcibly taken from them before they're thrown in Azkaban or tossed out on the streets, about the other people who are running and hiding from the Ministry, of the taboo on Voldemort's name that allows the Snatchers—amateur bounty hunters—to find anyone who says it, about the Death Eaters in Hogwarts, which has closed its doors to anyone without proven magical heritage.

"I have to stop it."

Riddle presses against Harry's back and rests his cheek on Harry's. " _When we're better._ "

" _Why not now? Those Death Eaters are probably hurting the students. People are being herded like cattle. I can stop this._ "

" _We're weak_ ," Riddle reminds him as Hermione's hands pulls away from his. " _We can barely stand. We cannot stop this, not now. There are still the Horcruxes to destroy and we cannot do that as weak as we are right now. It will be the diadem all over again, but worse. We need to recuperate before we can change the world. But..._ "

" _What?_ "

" _Draco is in danger,_ " he says, and Harry inhales sharply.

"Harry? What's wrong?"

He ignores Hermione, attention focused on Riddle and his hissing words. " _The Dark Lord will be after him and his parents. If we're to keep him safe, then we need to keep the Dark Lord from him and ensure the rest of the Death Eaters don't come after him._ "

" _How?_ "

" _Lock the Dark Lord away, and his pet snake with him. Make anyone who knows of the Malfoys treachery forget it, have James returned to Hogwarts, let things continue as normal, save for keeping the Dark Lord chained. It is the safest for everyone._ "

" _But they'll know he's missing; when they come to hurt us they'll find him._ "

" _Lucius and Narcissa can return to the Manor. Let them say we are to be given a reprieve to let us grow complacent and think ourselves safe so that we might hate it more when the torture starts again_." Harry tremors at the suggestion and Riddle's hand slips around, enclosing him in cold comfort. " _As for the Dark Lord, he is his own master; they will not question it if he should choose to leave for a while. As long as they have their orders, they will continue without him, but only if they believe him still alive. Do this, and we can keep Draco safe._ "

"Harry, are you alright?"

He jumps at the words spoken in Draco's soft voice. He hadn't heard him come in and he wonders if Hermione's still there or not; Draco's in front of him now, he's fairly certain.

"Is everyone still here?" Harry asks.

"Yes," Draco replies slowly and he can hear the frown in his voice. "No one's got anywhere to go."

"I need Dad, and James, Lucius, and Narcissa."

"For what?"

Harry holds out his hand, waiting until he feels Draco's in it before he speaks. "We've got a plan to keep you safe."

"I am safe, Harry. I'm here, with you, and this house is protected you said. No one can hurt me here."

"But they'll look for you, the Death Eaters. The Dark Lord will want you dead and I have to keep you safe. We've got a plan. Please, get them so we can tell them."

"Who's 'we'? You were talking Parseltongue; is it the voice?"

"Draco, please. I have to keep you safe. I have to stop the Dark Lord."

Draco sighs. "Granger, go get them."

* * *

"It's not a bad plan," the Assistant says when Harry's told them it. "Certainly safer for everyone if no one knows about all this."

"Draco will have to return to Hogwarts," Snape says. Draco and Harry's reaction is instantaneous.

"No!"

"I'm staying here," Draco adds adamantly.

"Your absence from the school will draw questions, Draco."

"I don't care. Tell them I'm sick or something. I'm not leaving him."

"Draco, stop being ridiculous," Lucius says harshly. "You've caused enough trouble today; you'll go back to Hogwarts and stay there."

Draco stands from the bed and only Harry's grip on his hand keeps him from stalking forwards to get in his father's face. "When are you going to realise that I _love_ him, Father? I'm not leaving him. It's not up for discussion or debate. I am staying here."

"Draco—"

"Lucius, stop it," Narcissa interrupts him. "Draco is staying. Send your pet back to Hogwarts and go back to the Manor. There's no longer any need for you to be here."

"Nor is there you," Lucius replies, his expression and voice now carefully cold.

"I will return to the Manor when I'm ready; for now, I'm staying with Draco. If that's alright with you, Severus?"

Snape nods. Narcissa returns it then raises a haughty eyebrow at Lucius. "Why are you still here?"

"Draco is my son, too. Have you considered that I might want to stay with him? Why is it that I am being thrown out?"

"Someone needs to be at the Manor," the Assistant answers, "which means either you or Narcissa. You're the one being confrontational and refusing to get along with anyone."

"I didn't ask you."

"Point in case," the Assistant responds. "You can't get along with anyone, Lucius, so get out."

"And if the Dark Lord isn't locked up?" Lucius asks the room in general, but his eyes flick between Narcissa and Draco. "You will be sending me to my death."

"I Wished it," Harry says and Lucius doesn't manage to hide his discomfort as the mutilated face fixes upon him. "He's there and no one knows you're a traitor but us."

"You expect me to risk my life on _your_ word?"

There's a brief pause in which Harry turns his head slightly as though listening to something, then: "You unchained me. It would be poor repayment if I sent you to your death. I don't know why you hate me so much, Lucius, but I've been hurt by too many people to waste energy hating you. Go away before I send you away."

"You can't—"

He vanishes.

"Harry, where have you sent him?" Snape asks.

"The Manor," Harry says, sounding suddenly weary, then his body stiffens and he falls into a seizure. Snape instinctively flicks a glance at his watch to keep track of how long it lasts.

"I'm going," James says to no one in particular.

"Then go," Snape snaps. "Tell Minerva what's happened and Mr Villiers that Lyle is fine."

James nods and vanishes.

Tyler glances at the Assistant then looks to Snape. "What's going to happen to me now, sir?"

"You can remain here for the time being. Granger, Longbottom—"

"I'm staying," Hermione says firmly. "I'm staying with Harry."

"Your loyalty is admirable, Miss Granger, but unnecessary. As you can see, Harry is... alive and safe, and there is not the space for so many people when you have other options."

"I'm going home," Neville blurts suddenly and several pairs of eyes look at him. He glances around at them all. "I-I'm going home," he stutters again, gives Hermione one last look, then screws up his face in concentration and vanishes with a pop.

* * *

James doesn't go straight to Hogwarts, instead Apparating into the Manor just a little behind where Lucius stands in the hallway with the door leading down to the cellar. Without looking at him, Lucius pushes the door open and steps aside.

"Go in and see if the Dark Lord's there."

James draws his wand and reluctantly enters, crossing the room and hesitating at the door to the hidden room before pushing it open. Voldemort is inside, furiously struggling with the chain running from the collar to the wall, trying to yank it out of the stone. He turns at the sound of a door and James can't help cowering slightly at the livid expression on his face. Nagini is trapped in a plastic cage in one corner, solid save for the air holes in the top.

"Get me out!"

James lifts his wand.

"Precious, don't!" Lucius shouts, panic in his voice as he remembers that James has been ordered to obey the Dark Lord and not sure if the Magic Lock on the shackles is still in place after he removed them from Harry, and James freezes. Lucius hurries in, grabbing him by the arm and pulling him away, unable to keep the fear from his own face as he glimpses the irate Dark Lord before slamming the door shut again.

"You are no longer required to obey the Dark Lord," Lucius says a touch shakily as James puts his wand away. "Come with me. You can return to the school later."

* * *

Snape grudgingly agrees again to let Hermione stay now that she'll be alone if he sends her out. Tyler asks about food and Snape sighs, wondering why he didn't just take Harry that morning and leave the rest to fend for themselves.

"I'm going to have to go get some. Apparently the cupboards are almost bare."

"I noticed Sirius' motorcycle is still sat in the garden," the Assistant says. "If it's got fuel I can take it and get food."

"The nearest store is fifty miles from here."

"The nearest magical store is fifty miles from here," the Assistant corrects him. "Coleford High Street is five minutes from here. Someone deals with the three arses still out front, I can ride up there and get some groceries."

"I don't have any Muggle money."

"Lucky for you, I do, and I'm willing to share under one condition."

Snape folds his arms over his chest. "And what's that?"

The Assistant glances around at them all, and Snape almost thinks the man looks vaguely embarrassed, then clears his throat before saying, "I noticed you've got a potions kit. I want a Detox Draught."

"You're a junkie?" Draco asks judgmentally.

The Assistant shrugs, eyes still on Snape, whose mouth has tightened into a disapproving frown.

"What are you taking?"

"Heroin."

"Do you have any? I'll need it for the potion."

The Assistant grins gratefully. "I do. Do you want to make a shopping list or am I trusted to get what's needed?"

They scribble up a short list of essentials and Narcissa stuns the Aurors before Apparating them the the middle of the forest. At Snape's request, Harry Wishes the house to be entirely untraceable, which will hopefully keep anymore Aurors or Death Eaters from turning up.

"Aren't you going to wear a helmet?"

"There isn't one, but I appreciate the concern. I'll be fine," the Assistant tells Hermione as he pushes Sirius' bike around to the front of the house. Hermione frowns, casting her eyes around until she finds a largish stone and draws her wand, tapping the rock and murmuring a spell to transfigure it into a helmet. He shoots her an amused look as he swings a leg over the bike and settles in place, but takes it from her when she holds it out.

"Hope it doesn't untransfigure while I'm riding."

"It shouldn't. Transfiguration was my third best subject."

"What was the first and second?"

"Arithmancy and Charms."

The Assistant pulls the helmet over his head, clipping it up and then making an exaggeratedly seductive expression. "How do I look?"

"Ridiculous," she says with a smile and the seduction turns to mock offence.

"You wound me, Hermione. I'm heart-broken."

She laughs, stepping back as he fires up the engine. He taps two fingers to his helmet in a salute and she gives a little wave back then he checks down the road before riding off.

* * *

"Sir," Tyler says a touch nervously to Snape, "I'm sorry to be a bother, but if I'm going to stay here, can someone take me home to get some clothes and Aurora, my cat? There's no one there to feed her or anything."

Snape glares at the soup he's heating in a pan on the stove for Harry; he and Narcissa both agree that Harry shouldn't eat anything too heavy until he recovers more. He knows Tyler's request is perfectly reasonable but he's annoyed anyway. He hasn't had to share living space with so many people in a long time and he doesn't like it, nor does he like being given the responsibility of looking after an extra child, no matter how temporary he hopes it will be. He supposes he should be grateful it's one of his Slytherins (a little voice in his head sneers at him for still thinking of them as his) rather than some impossible to deal with Hufflepuff or Gryffindor.

"Ask Granger," he says eventually. He's not leaving Harry and he doubts Narcissa will want to act as chauffeur for a sixteen year old, but to his surprise it's her voice he hears next.

"I'll take you, Mr Lyle."

Snape looks around to see Tyler looking as surprised as he feels, but he quickly thanks Narcissa and takes her arm when she offers it, telling her the address before they both vanish.

When Snape takes the soup up to Harry, he fetches two potions from his kit on the way.

"I've got a couple of potions I need you to drink before you eat," he tells Harry. Harry's in his bed, sat up against the pillows, and he curls both hands possessively around the bowl of soup, drawing it closer even as he turns his head slightly towards Snape.

"What is it?"

"One to help your muscles regain their strength, one to make up for the various vitamin deficiencies."

Keeping one hand on the bowl, but using magic to keep it steady because he knows he doesn't have the strength to hold it, Harry lifts his other and curls it around the vial Snape presses to his palm. It smells like dog food and vinegar and he retches and shoves it away, shaking his head.

"No."

"Harry, you need it to get better."

"No. I'm not taking it. What's the other one?" Snape hands him the other vial and he sniffs it warily then says, "I'll take this one."

"You need them both."

"No, and you can't make me," he says and Snape doesn't argue further, because there's a fear in Harry's voice that makes Snape think someone has forced him to take potions he didn't want.

Harry downs the vitamin potion; it's sickeningly sweet and leaves him feeling like he's just eaten an entire bag of pure sugar. The moment Snape takes the empty vial from him, he hunches over his bowl and starts eating, scooping the food into his mouth as fast as he can.

"Slow down. You'll make yourself sick."

Harry doesn't. Snape's about to take his wrist to make him slow down, then a thought occurs to him as he takes in the protective stance and the hurried eating, and he remembers Harry's earlier comment in the bathroom about people taking his food away.

"If you carry on like that you'll throw up it and the potion. It's not going anywhere, Harry. You don't need to rush it."

Harry draws the bowl closer, but he does slow down a little.


	99. Chapter 99

Harry's dozing in the not-quite-asleep state when he hears a gentle rap of knuckles on his door. Draco's not there and he doesn't know where he is, but Snape sits on the bed, making it dip by Harry's feet, and Riddle's pressed against his back. Even with the cold body behind him, Harry's warm under the weight of his covers, and he's comfortable, well fed, and tired, with absolutely no inclination to move or talk to anyone.

But he hears Snape's murmured, "Come in," and the door opens. He listens to it close again and footsteps approach the bed then the Assistant's voice asks quietly, "How is he?"

"Alive and safe."

"Worse than you'd have liked but better than you might have hoped for?"

He hears no response from Snape but the Assistant hums an agreement that makes Harry thinks Snape may have nodded.

He hears the shuffling of clothing as someone sits down on the other bed then he hears the Assistant ask, "Can I ask you about Tom Riddle's diary?"

"Why are you asking about that?" Snape replies, and Harry can hear the frown in his voice.

"Remember how I mentioned the Dark Lord has a few Horcruxes earlier? Well that was one of them."

"'Was'?"

"Albus told me you destroyed it. How did that go down?"

"Don't you already know?" Snape asks a little snidely.

"These things don't always happen the same, and I was busy falling in love with an impossible women for most of that year so I didn't pay a whole lot of attention to what was happening at the school."

"An 'impossible' women?"

"She loved another guy; I didn't have a chance. You'd know all about that, wouldn't you?" There's a pause and Harry feels the bed shift then, "Sorry," the Assistant apologises quietly. "That was uncalled for. Tell me how you destroyed the diary."

* * *

"And then the diary died?"

Snape's brow furrows. "It was a book."

"It was a Horcrux. It contained half a living soul. When you stabbed it, that bit of soul died and it should have shown. So what happened?"

"I stabbed it, Riddle vanished, the end. I had just been poisoned; I wasn't paying a great deal of attention to the details."

"Hmm."

"What?"

The Assistant inhales slowly, watching Harry sleep. "You know that's Lucius' fault as well."

"The diary?"

The Assistant nods. "The Ministry was clamping down on dark magic artefacts that year. Lucius was getting rid a few things, but he realised he couldn't just sell the diary like everything else, so he slipped it to Ginny Weasley when he met her and the family in Diagon Alley. That's how it normally goes down anyway."

Snape looks to Harry, remembering how he looked lying on the floor of the Chamber of Secrets, pale and cold. He was more scared then than he was the night he found Harry bleeding all over his bathroom floor, because for one horrifying moment he actually thought he was dead.

"Lucius should be thankful he's not here then."

" _Well now, that's a curious bit of information._ "

Harry doesn't reply. He's so close to sleep and it's really all he wants right now, but there's a persistent little part of him that's saying it's not safe, that he can't sleep while there are people there. No matter how much he tells himself it's just Snape and the Assistant, no one that will hurt him, he can't quite relax enough to fully give in to unconsciousness.

Cold fingers brush against his cheek and he sighs softly, shifting back against Riddle as his soft voice murmurs, " _You're safe with me. You can sleep. I won't allow anyone to hurt us. We have magic now; I can protect you while you sleep._ "

" _Promise?_ "

" _Of course. I will always protect us, Harry. We will never be hurt again._ "

"Is he sleep talking in Parseltongue?"

The Assistant gives a small smile. "Seems so. Just one word. 'Promise?' Shouldn't you check on the Detox Draught?"

Snape glances at his watch. "It needs to simmer for another ten minutes. Are you familiar with how it works?"

"Yeah. Not looking forward to it."

"Why ask for it?"

"Don't know any drug dealers in Coleford and that was my last fifty quid."

"I'm sure you could steal some more."

"That money was not stolen," the Assistant tells him, but he's not offended. "It was hard earned."

"Really," Snape says dryly.

"Yes, really. You know how hard it is to earn money as a whore when you've got a body as scarred as mine? And I mean semi-decent money from people that aren't riddled with diseases."

"You really did hit rock bottom."

"Let me suppress your magic and see how long you last on the streets."

"I think I'd just kill myself, especially if I knew I'd just... what do you call it? Reset?"

The Assistant snaps his fingers. "Damn, well why didn't I think of that?" he says sarcastically, "My Master forbid me from killing myself, letting anyone else kill me, altering the scars to render them useless... you get the drill. But it's almost over anyway."

"What is?"

"This timeline. Things are coming to a head, I can feel it, and that usually means I die. I'd wager I'm done before Christmas."

* * *

"I'm curious, Severus," Narcissa says later that evening when the two of them sit in the dining room, Snape with an empty shot glass in front of him and Narcissa finishing a cup of tea with a splash of vodka in it. Hermione and Tyler are in the sitting room and Draco's upstairs with Harry. "Where do you plan to let everyone sleep tonight?"

"Are you staying the night?"

"No, I'll leave shortly."

He nods. "Granger will get a bedroom to herself, I suppose. Draco will stay with Harry. We can fit another bed in there for Tyler, and two beds in the third bedroom for myself and the Assistant."

"You don't look too pleased about that arrangement. Why not make him take the sofa; I understand it's the tradition for people without enough bed space."

Snape snorts. "I suppose that's not something Lucius ever had to suffer if you argued badly enough to kick him out for a night."

Narcissa smiles lightly and sips her tea. "No, it's not. Though I don't understand why the person in question doesn't simply transfigure it into a bed for the night."

"For guests, they might, but someone who's supposed to be being punished by sleeping on a sofa doesn't want to get caught sleeping comfortably in the morning by their lover."

"Hmm. Lucius and I merely hexed one another."

He raises an eyebrow at her. "That seems dangerous given that you've both got nasty tempers and a good knowledge of hexes."

"Oh, we had rules. Nothing dark, permanent, or excessively dangerous, and nothing that would land either of us in Saint Mungo's, but we found that hexing each other dealt with the emotional build up and left us more clear headed to discuss things. There were very few times we argued for long enough that we slept in separate beds."

* * *

The Assistant is forced to retreat to the bathroom when the Detox Draught is brewed, which starts him shivering and sweating and then vomiting and crapping out what feels like everything he's ever eaten, all while his muscles and bones ache and his stomach cramps. It's a miserable way to spend the rest of the afternoon and evening, but Hermione's the only one to have a modicum of sympathy for him.

"Assistant?"

He lifts his head from his arms, which rest on his knees, to look at Hermione with bloodshot eyes. He's wearing only his boxers, as his clothes are the only ones he has and he doesn't want to drench them in sweat, and he has a towel tugged around him.

"You need to use the bathroom?" he asks her.

"No, I was wondering if you'd mind talking to me."

"Gladly," he replies. "I'd appreciate the distraction. What about?"

She sits cross-legged opposite him. "Is James Potter under the Imperius Curse?"

"Ah, that. No, he's not."

"But Mr Malfoy has put some kind of spell on him, hasn't he? To make him be a Death Eater and act like he does around him."

The Assistant nods. "Have you ever heard of Animancupium? It's a Soul Binding ritual," he explains when she shakes her head. "It ties the soul of one person to that of another, in the form of a slave."

"That's awful!"

"You have no idea," he says dryly. "It was designed to enslave Muggles ages ago and the use of it on a fellow wizard was actually considered a gross injustice, but it went out of use when wizards had to start going into hiding and it's been almost forgotten since. It's not even illegal, it's so outdated."

"How do you know so much about it?" she asks, a hint of suspicion in her voice.

"Because I've used it. I've been the Slave of an Animancupium since I was fourteen."

She gapes at him and he smiles wanly, then scrambles up to bend over the toilet and vomit into it. When he finishes retching, bringing up little more than stomach acid, he reaches up for the glass of water sat on the edge of the sink, rinses his mouth and spits into the toilet bowl, then closes the lid and flushes.

"The Lucius Malfoy of my original timeline put me under it," he explains to Hermione when he's ready to speak again. "Since then it's been transferred to a dozen different Masters and right now it's tied to the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement."

"Transferred? You can just move it from one person to another?"

"Between Masters, yeah. Slaves get bought and sold all the time; the spell makers had to include a way for a Slave's Bond to be given to a new Master and on Muggles, as it was designed for, it requires the current Master's input to do it. Unfortunately with wizards, it doesn't, so a wizard Slave can essentially be stolen."

"Or moved to someone nicer. Why doesn't James do that?"

"For the same reason I haven't: the Bond makes a Slave feel an attachment to their Master, no matter how badly they might treat them. It enforces loyalty, which is the whole purpose of the Bond. You don't want a disloyal slave."

"Did your Master mistreat you?"

"Who do you think carved these runes into me? My Master's a Death Eater, and a heavily loyal one at that. When I betrayed the Dark Lord, I was deemed too dangerous to be used anymore and my Master was given leave to do as he pleased to me. It pleased him to render me incapable of using magic."

Hermione's expression is pure pity. "I'm sorry."

He shrugs. "Whatever happens, by next May they'll be gone. It's when my loop resets," he adds at her questioning look. "May the first."

"Can I ask about that?" she queries, leaning forwards slightly, face curious. "How did it happen? I know you said you messed up a ritual to go back in time, but which exactly? I read about a few when I researched time travel, and I know they're all illegal and incredibly difficult."

"Hence why I messed up. I was trying a time reversal, to physically turn myself back so I could change a specific event in my past."

"What event? Was it to stop You Know Who?"

"I intended to change that too, but no, that wasn't my reason. My dad died when I was six; I wanted to go back and save him."

"You mean Professor Snape? He died?"

"My Severus Snape died," he confirms. "That's not the same person as yours, the one downstairs."

"How did he die?"

"Potion's accident. But as you know, I messed up and now I can only affect other Severus Snape's and their lives."

"That's must be difficult for you, being around a man who's basically your father but isn't."

"I got used to it. Had to. I hate to be rude, but I'm going to have to ask you to leave. I need to use the toilet."

* * *

"You realise you shouldn't share his bed tonight."

Draco looks around at his mother's soft words, frowning and rising from Harry's bed. "Why not?"

"He won't react well to finding someone so close to him when he wakes, darling. It'll be a long time before he's comfortable sharing his bed, I imagine."

Draco looks over at Harry, brow furrowed even in sleep, Kiwi clutched tightly against his chest, knees drawn up defensively, and he feels a fresh wave of hatred for Voldemort and everyone that dared to hurt Harry.

He looks back when he feels Narcissa's hand brush hair behind his ear and finds her face showing the barest hint of pity.

"I'm heading back to the Manor now, but I'll come by in the morning to check on you."

"I'm seventeen, Mother, I don't need checking on."

"You were an inch from death this morning, Draco," she says, and though her voice is steady he can see the emotion in her eyes at the memory of it and he can't help shivering slightly. All day the only thing he's seen when he closes his eyes is bright green light. "I will come check on you in the morning. Don't leave the house before then."

He nods then hugs her, something he hasn't done in a long time. She's surprised, but doesn't hesitate to return it, pressing a kiss to his hair and reassuring herself that he's alive and well. She's certain she'll have nightmares tonight.

* * *

_In his mind he's whole and unblemished. He's naked, his skin unmarked—no scars, no bruises, no tattoos—and he's skinny, as always, but not unhealthily so as he knows he is in reality. There's no jutting hipbones, no ribs so obvious they can be counted, no sharp elbows and knees. His foot sits straight, his hands don't shake, and all his fingernails are trimmed but there. Most importantly he can see. Two gleaming eyes, one blue and one green but both very real, look out from a pale face and stare up at the dark-eyed figure over him, in front of him._

_They're floating, he thinks. He can feel nothing under or behind him, can see nothing but the person before him, is barely even aware of which way is up. Riddle, beautiful and terrifying and welcoming, smiles at him as he slides cold hands around his waist. He doesn't fight—doesn't want to fight. He's not afraid, not of the only person that's always there, that's been with him through everything. He gladly lets himself be pulled against the body, feels cold skin press against warm, feels one hand splay against his lower back while the other slides up to cradle the back of his head, feels legs tangle with his own, drawing them together like they're puzzle pieces sliding into place._

_He stares into dark eyes as his own arms encircle that cold waist, not wanting to blink, unwilling to lose sight of the only thing he can look at now, even for a millisecond. When Riddle's lips brush against his own, he shivers and doesn't pull back._

_"Let me in, Harry," he whispers. "Let me in."_

_And he really has no choice—though if he did, he wouldn't deny this request anyway—because Riddle is already a part of him, the one person that's been with him forever, even when he couldn't hear him, couldn't see him. It's really not a matter of letting him in, just accepting what's already there, and that is so, so easy._

_"Yes."_

* * *

Riddle opens his eyes. Eye, he corrects. One single, fake, useless eye. There's nothing for him to see but darkness and he doesn't waste time lamenting it. He focuses on everything else instead. He lies on his side in bed, Kiwi clutched in his grip, and no one touching him. He can hear breathing, the steady, slow breaths of someone asleep, and he rolls onto his back to free both ears. He thinks it's Draco, but he's not totally sure.

He lies for a while, listening, but can hear nothing else. He doesn't know what time it is. He tests himself, moving limbs that struggle to obey him, twitching fingers, feeling for sore spots that ache now the pain relieving potion has long worn off. The body is weak, sickly, as always, and he abhors being stuck in it. Despises it more now than he had the first time; at least then he could stand, move, _see_.

But now... now he is blind and near helpless, and he knows, loathe as he is to admit it, that if he wants to survive and escape this body, then he will need assistance. He will have to rely on someone to do what he can't and that's dangerous. Others were so unreliable and looking as he does, he will not be believed or trusted. But it has to be done and there is only one that he can take assistance from, only one that will help him in his goals... or so he hopes. The risk of betrayal is high, but he hopes it will be worth it. He has no other choice.

* * *

Lucius doesn't know what wakes him, but he doesn't question it. Nor does he question the decision to slide from the guest bed that's become his own over past months and slip his feet into his slippers, to pull on a night robe and leave the room, moving silently through the house, treading familiar floors with a destination in mind but no sure reason why, feeling ( _knowing_ ) only that he is going where he must. The questions come only when he stands in the drawing room and stares down at the figure of Harry Evans sitting in one of the chairs before a gently crackling fire and his mutilated face fixing attentively on him.

"Hello, Lucius."


	100. Chapter 100

"Have a seat, Lucius."

"What are you doing here?"

"You and I are long overdue a _chat_ , Lucius. Don't you think?"

Lucius stares at the face blindly looking up at him, expression perfectly serene, voice calm but with an undertone of something that reminds Lucius of exactly how much power this child has. Even so:

"No," he says firmly and turns to leave, only for something like a hook to dig into his gut, drag him back and pull him into one of the chairs, which promptly swivels to face Riddle.

"How dare you—"

"Shut up," Riddle interrupts. "Lucius, you seem to be far stupider than I originally took you for. I have power you can never hope to wield, as you well know, and yet you insist on being difficult. Make life easier for both of us and stop it. I did not come here to exchange insults with you; I came to have a nice, adult discussion about your loyalties and plans for the future. I want to create an alliance with you, Lucius."

"An alliance," Lucius repeats disbelievingly, shifting in his seat to get more comfortable and pretend he's there by choice. "I cannot see what possible alliance you might have in mind, Evans, but whatever it is I can guarantee you I'm not interested."

"We shall see. We'll get to the alliance later. For now, let's talk about your stance on the world order at the moment and where it's heading. Also, shall we get some drinks? This body is unfortunately weak and Apparating here did it little good."

He waves his hand and a tray appears on the small circular drinks table. It holds two whiskey glasses, a jug of water, and a decanter of amber liquid.

"You strike me as the whiskey drinking type," Riddle says conversationally as the jug lifts and pours water into one of the glasses, which then floats over to Riddle. "This body has never tried it but I doubt now is the time, given its current condition. Please, help yourself."

Lucius makes no move for it, watching Riddle lift the glass to his mouth and drink down a mouthful.

"It's not poisoned, in case you were wondering. I don't want you dead."

"That seems unlikely."

"Oh, come now, Lucius. You got me out of that awful cellar and, more importantly, you are Draco's father. He would be understandably distressed if you died; more so if I was responsible, and the last thing I want to do is distress Draco."

"Why are you here?" Lucius asks, still making no move towards the whiskey, brow furrowed and mouth pulled into a tight frown. "Does Severus know you're here? Or Draco?"

"No, none of them are aware. I placed a sleeping compulsion on them all; they won't wake while I'm gone. Nor will Narcissa or the house elf while I'm here. I didn't want anyone disturbing us. As for why I'm here, I believe I've already told you that. Politics. Alliances. Loyalties. Yours, specifically."

"I don't see how it's any business of yours."

"Oh? Why not? It's your loyalties that lead to my freedom, after all. You loyalty to your family that means I'm sitting in this reasonably comfortable chair instead of lying on a cold floor waiting for Mulciber to come and rape me again or—who's the one that likes putting his cigarettes out on my skin after he's beaten me half to death and snorts like a pig when he laughs?"

"Did you come here to try and guilt me with stories of what they did?"

"Would you feel guilty?"

"No."

"No, I didn't think so," Riddle murmurs, drinking again. "You don't care for me do you, Lucius? In fact, I rather think you actively dislike me. Why is that? And do let's be honest."

"If you insist," Lucius says with a dry smile. "You are a weak, treacherous child from impure blood. I think the Dark Lord should have killed you when he first had the chance, and the _only_ reason I freed you was so you could save Draco and Narcissa."

"So then you still believe in the pureblood agenda, elimination of Muggles, etcetera, etcetera?"

"Of course," Lucius sneers.

"Good."

Lucius stares. Riddle cocks his head. "I imagine you're a touch shocked right now. I don't recall seeing you express shock, but I expect the image I have in mind is quite accurate. You and Draco are very similar in looks and I've seen him shocked plenty."

Lucius recovers himself at the name. "He won't want you forever. Not as you are now."

"You underestimate his feelings, Lucius, but I'm not going to discuss Draco right now. Tell me: if someone as powerful as the Dark Lord came along with the intention of continuing his work and offered you the position of being his right-hand man, would you accept it?"

"There is no one as powerful as the Dark Lord."

"There are a couple of people more powerful than him. You're talking to one of them."

"You were captured and imprisoned by the Dark Lord. More than once."

"He had the Assistant the first time," Riddle replies dismissively. "He doesn't now. As for this summer, it was bait and trickery. It will not happen again. You haven't answered my question. Would you accept it?"

Lucius leans over and pours water into the second glass. He'd prefer the whiskey but isn't about to trust that it isn't poisoned. He drinks and leans back in his seat.

"No."

Riddle's eyebrows rise. "No? You would not side with someone that perpetuates your beliefs and had every intention of ensuring the world continues as it currently is even if the Dark Lord dies? This is, of course, with the added assurance that Draco and Narcissa would come to no harm."

"No," Lucius repeats. "I will not risk my family to a madman."

"Why presume it would be a madman? I am not talking about the Dark Lord, Lucius, but someone better—saner. Someone that will ensure the safety of the wizarding world and continue the eradication of the impure, but not a fractured man like the Dark Lord, not someone who tortures and kills his loyal subjects as easily as his enemies. Would you not work with a person like that?"

"Do you expect a person like that to come along?" Lucius asks instead of answering the question. He glances at the whiskey, wondering if perhaps he should take the risk and pour a glass anyway because their conversation is beginning to grow surreal.

"I can see a future where it's possible."

"Really," Lucius asks sceptically. "Your mother was a Mudblood, you are friends with the whore carrying Longbottom's child... yet you expect me to believe you would not stop a man trying to continue the Dark Lord's work of eliminating people like them?"

Riddle smiles. "Tell me about Tom Riddle's diary."

Lucius lifts an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"

"Tom Riddle's diary. You gave it to Ginny Weasley some years ago and it resulted in the reopening of the Chamber of Secrets."

"Why would you ask about that?" Lucius says, genuinely baffled.

"Because the diary very nearly killed me."

"That's hardly my fault."

"You're not blame free; I never would have come into possession of it if it weren't for you. Why did you give it to her?"

"I don't have to answer that."

"The Assistant claims you were merely getting rid of questionable artefacts in the face of a Ministry clampdown," Riddle says as though Lucius hadn't spoken. "Was that the sole reason? Was Ginny Weasley just an unfortunate victim or was she chosen specifically?"

"She was convenient," Lucius says with a hint of annoyance. "I had to get rid of it and she was there. I certainly didn't care what might happen to Arthur Weasley's daughter, but I didn't plan to give it to her."

"Why get rid of it? You were able to keep James hidden from the Ministry; surely hiding a little book would have been just as easy?"

"It's really none of your business, Evans. I'm done playing twenty questions with you."

He sets down his glass and stands, only to get yanked back into his seat.

"We're not done, Lucius."

"We are. Let me up!"

"No. You've not yet answered my question."

"I've answered all your questions, you impudent child."

"No, Lucius, you haven't. If someone came to continue the Dark Lord's work and offered you a place at his side, promised you the safety of you and your family unconditionally, would you become his first and most revered lieutenant?"

"It is irrelevant. It will not happen. There is no one else with the power, the drive, and the fortitude to take over from him. There are very few Death Eaters capable of the management and leadership required to continue the Dark Lord's work without him, and if there were the rest would not bow and submit to them as they do to him. The Mudbloods and Muggle lovers will rebel when the Dark Lord's death is discovered; those who serve him only from fear will desert; the ones who gravitate to him for his power will turn as soon as someone else arises to take his place, no matter their political stance. The Dark Lord will die and his work will die with him."

"But if there was someone to continue it?" Riddle persists, leaning forward in his seat, his still half full glass clutched in his fingers and resting on his lap, mostly forgotten as he focuses entirely on Lucius, who's more than a little unnerved by the blind attention. "If there was...?"

Lucius sighs irritably. "Then yes. If it will shut you up, yes, I would stand at his side in an instant as long as I knew my family would be safe."

Riddle smiles. Lucius shifts uncomfortably, disturbed by the way it mangles the scarred face.

"Then help me, Lucius, and I will make your family royalty to commoners."

Lucius stares at the child across from him. He thinks, if the one green eye actually worked, then it would be alight with excitement. For the first time all evening, he begins to wonder if the person before him is really Harry Evans. He hadn't questioned it earlier because he hadn't cared to, but now he wonders if this mental vigour is something more than simply recovering. Less than twenty-four hours ago Harry Evans was a cowering, whimpering, scared child, but the person sitting before him now is far from that. It's still the same mutilated, weak body, but as he thinks over their conversation, replays the words in his head, he realises it's nothing like the exchanges he's shared with Evans before. There's no hesitation, fear, or anger in the words, just confidence and demands.

"Who are you?"

Riddle's grin widens and Lucius thinks that too doesn't belong. "Do you know how Tom Riddle's diary worked, Lucius?"

"No," Lucius answers, realising by now that to question his odd topics of conversation is pointless. "I know only that it somehow allowed the Dark Lord to work through others to open the Chamber of Secrets."

"It contained a piece of his soul. You're aware, I'm sure, that the Dark Lord has gone to great length to ensure his immortality. One of those lengths was to split his soul and place the pieces into vessels. They're called Horcruxes. He did that with the diary. When Harry Evans, and Ginny Weasley before him, wrote in the diary, that piece of the Dark Lord's soul was able to possess them. However the diary was only one of the Horcruxes the Dark Lord made; there are several others, but the important part is the night he went to Godric's Hollow to kill Harry Potter, he intended to make another. As it was, due to the unexpected events of that night, he thought that he failed to do so... except he didn't. His soul did break that night and it latched onto the only living thing it could—little Harry Potter."

"You contain a piece of the Dark Lord's soul," Lucius says slowly.

"Back then, just a tiny piece. The Dark Lord had already split his soul so much that the fraction that broke off that night was minuscule, far too tiny for anyone to notice. It might never have been noticed by anyone—though I admit I wouldn't put it past Dumbledore to have figured it out—but then Harry Evans wrote in that diary. He was dragged down to the Chamber of Secrets to die but Albus Dumbledore, being his typically meddlesome self, came to the rescue and before the diary could properly drain Harry's life force, it was forced to admit defeat."

"The diary was destroyed; I'm aware of this," Lucius says. "I'm not aware of why you're telling me it."

"Because, Lucius, the diary may have been destroyed but the piece of soul inside it was not. With anyone else—if it had been Ginny Weasley lying on that chamber floor—then the piece of soul would have perished with the book, but it was Harry Evans, who already had a part of the Dark Lord in him. He was already a host and after writing in the diary, he was vulnerable to further possession, so rather than die, I left the book and joined the piece of myself already in him."

Lucius does reach for the whiskey now, not even thinking of poison as tosses the remaining water in the glass into the fire and then pours a shot, knocks it back, and stares at Riddle. "You're Tom Riddle?"

"Yes."

"The Tom Riddle who grew into the Dark Lord?"

"If you're afraid I'm going to take vengeance for your betrayal on the man currently locked in your cellar, you needn't fear, Lucius. I am not him. He is the fractured madman that resulted from splitting his soul too many times. He has lost his way and when the time comes, he will die."

"And you plan to take his place? To reign again as... as what?"

"As a king. Hermione told me about the world at the moment—this prosecution of Muggleborns and power held by the worthy is all well and good but the Dark Lord...? Where has he been? She said there's no news of him. Has he been here all this time? Hiding in your Manor while the world continues without him? He came to me, on occasion, conducting rituals and spells to take my magic, all of them failing. But the rest of the time?"

"He's been gone. We don't know where; we don't ask."

"Of course you don't," Riddle agrees, sitting back. "No one does because he's a madman, so intent on ruling people through fear that even his most loyal don't dare question when he vanishes. That is not the way to rule. One cannot rule their people through absence."

"And you plan to become a king? The wizarding world has never had a king."

"It is time the wizarding world changed, Lucius. We both know that."

Lucius pours himself another whiskey, but sips it this time. "If you are Tom Riddle, why have you not revealed yourself before now? Why not tell the Dark Lord—the one downstairs—who you were?"

"I wasn't aware of myself until this March. Even with the larger piece of soul taken from the diary, I was still only a small piece within a host body. Harry Evans still controlled himself; it required a... trigger to draw me out. At first I was just a voice in his head, brought about after Barty Crouch Junior used the Imperius Curse on him whilst working as Mad-Eye Moody. For years that's all I was—the voice. Harry Evans' insanity. But then Harry did something that let me come out, let me take over: he split his soul."

Lucius sips his drink, frowns. "He made a... what was it?"

"Horcrux. Yes."

"Why? Surely this is incredibly dark magic and I've seen myself how reluctant he is to use that."

"The reason is irrelevant; he did it, and it allowed me to finally take control of this body. I became sentient, aware of myself."

"But you still didn't tell the Dark Lord."

"You have Draco to blame for that," Riddle says, annoyance seeping into his voice. "You can disapprove all you like, Lucius, but the fact remains Draco loves Harry and Harry loves him back, very, very strongly. You remember when Harry accidentally brought him along when he was summoned in March?"

Lucius expression hardens. "I shan't forget it any time soon."

"Owing, no doubt, to the fact that Draco was injured. For the same reason, Harry fought and struggled to take back control from me and he succeeded. His love for your son keeps him grounded and in control. It's highly bothersome but a fact I have to live with. So, once again, I was forced back into being his insanity, only worse now. He could see me. He thinks I'm nothing more than a hallucination still, and I like it that way. I have tried several times to take over again, but until tonight I haven't managed it."

"What's different about tonight?"

"Four months of torture. I was all Harry Evans had while he was locked in that cellar. He used to fear and dislike me, but after so much pain, throughout which I was the only one to touch him gently or speak a word of kindness to him, he welcomed me. I represented the only good thing to him, so when he slept tonight and I attempted to take control from him, he willingly submitted."

"Then he's aware of you."

Riddle shakes his head. "No. To him, I'm still a hallucination."

"He's blind."

"He can feel me. Or, he did. For now he's in here asleep," he says, tapping his head. "He isn't aware that I'm real. When he wakes in the morning, he'll remember nothing of what happened tonight."

"You plan to give control back to him?"

"I will have to. The moment Draco touches him, he will fight for it. I told you, Lucius, he loves your son dearly. He will fight to the ends of the earth to keep him safe, even from me. If I relent control, then it will be easy enough to regain it again when he sleeps. That besides, I need to remain a secret for now and it is far easier to let Harry have control than to try and pretend I'm him."

"Do you plan to harm my son?" Lucius asks, tone hard, and Riddle smiles.

"No. Your family is safe, Lucius, I promise you that. I am not the Dark Lord you know. I have spent years living with Harry Evans; he has... rubbed off on me. I may not love your son, but I'm certainly fond of him and have no desire to bring him harm."

"What do you plan to do?" Lucius asks him, finishing the whiskey and debating whether to pour another. "You cannot simply become a king. If you are going to become the new Dark Lord, what will happen to the one in my cellar?"

"He will cease to exist. The fragmentation of his—of our—soul is the reason he is so unstable and violent. Whilst I agree with the reasoning of our actions, it was clearly a bad path to take and I am lucky to have been given the opportunity to rectify it. I will reabsorb the rest of the pieces of my soul and then I will take the piece that's in him, the core, so to speak. I will be whole once again."

"And how am I to know that when you do that, I will not die then? You will have the piece of him that I betrayed; it seems dangerous for me. Why should I not just kill you now?"

Riddle smiles condescendingly and Lucius bristles. "Because, my dear Lucius, you cannot. Your wand is upstairs in your bedroom, and for all my current physical weakness, I have magical power that far compensates and will keep you from killing me with your bare hands. I assure you that I will not kill you for the betrayal of my other self. The core of my soul is tiny; its thoughts and feeling, its grudges, will not affect me. It would also be poor repayment for the help I expect you to give me before that time comes."

Lucius pours another shot of whiskey and wonders if he's mad. "What help is that?"

"As you and many others during Harry's lifetime have pointed out, this body is weak and sickly, especially now. It tires of just sitting here. I have absolutely no intention of staying in it. There is a ritual that can transfer souls from one body to another, but it will only work on complete souls. When I am whole again, I will transfer myself back into my other body."

"Why not simply do that when you rejoin with the core?"

"Because the nature of the Horcrux makes rejoining the core extremely dangerous and painful. I have to absorb the core into me when I've taken all the others, so that I become the new core. I cannot go back to that body without first drawing the piece of soul out of it. I also intend to take every ounce of Harry's remarkable magic with me and I believe that being whole in this body first is the only way to do it."

"And why do you need my help? It seems you have everything planned."

"I need people, Lucius. Someone on my side when I take over. Someone to assure the others that I am who I say I am and not Harry trying to fool everyone."

"Why did you come to me for help?"

"Why not you, Lucius? You still stand with the Dark Lord's beliefs; you only betrayed him to save your family, which I absolutely understand, and I am honestly grateful to you for getting me out of there. I will need someone to stand at my side when I take this world back and I want it to be you, someone I know to fully believe in what I believe. When I am king, you will be my counsel. You will be trusted as no other is and you will never have to bend your knee to me. Narcissa and Draco will be given my complete protection. You and your family will have everything you might ever want."

Riddle leans forward in his seat and though Lucius is still unnerved by the attention, it's not solely because of the mangled face now, but the persona behind it.

"So answer me, Lucius: will you be stand at my side as I make this world what it should be?"

"Yes."


	101. Chapter 101

Snape's surprised when he wakes up a little after eight, having slept the whole night through. He expected to have trouble sleeping, to wake every few hours to check on Harry. It is the first thing he does, yawning as he gets up, glancing over to see the Assistant still fast asleep, and rubs sleep from his eyes as he moves quietly from the room and down the hall to Harry's. Inside Harry, Draco, and Tyler are all still asleep, Draco sprawled along his bed, Tyler completely hidden under the covers of his, while Harry's curled tightly in his own looking as though he's hardly moved since Snape looked in on him the night before. He leaves without waking them, uses the bathroom, then goes down to the kitchen and boils the kettle for his morning coffee.

Hermione is the next up and he's glad she doesn't try to make conversation with him as she makes some toast and tea. They're sitting in companionable silence when the Assistant appears, fresh from the shower, but not yet dressed. He asks for a Cleaning Charm on his clothes, disappears briefly to dress, then returns and starts pulling out a pack of bacon, a carton of eggs, a tomato, a pack of sausages, a tin of beans, and bread.

"You guys want some?" he calls through the archway between the kitchen and dining room. Snape shakes his head, but Hermione looks over with interest.

"Bacon sounds good now you mention it," she says hopefully.

"One lot of bacon coming right up. The boys still asleep?"

"Not for long with the amount of noise you're making," Snape says and the Assistant grins sheepishly.

"Sorry."

Tyler shuffles into the dining room a little later, yawning and rubbing at sleepy eyes. He stays just long enough to snag a couple of slices of toast then hurries out again, complaining about the smell of bacon. Draco turns up just as the Assistant's putting on the last of the meat to cook.

"Harry's still asleep," he tells Snape as he drops into a chair. "Should we wake him to eat?"

"Only if you want to get thrown across the room," Snape says, feeling a prickle along the back of his head at the memory of the last time he woke Harry. "Sleep's good for him. He can eat when he wakes."

They're still eating when Narcissa Apparates into the house. She greets them all politely but her eyes linger on Draco, looking him over like she expects him to suddenly start displaying symptoms of some terrible affliction.

"Breakfast, Narcissa?" the Assistant offers. "There's no bacon left but we've still got eggs, toast, beans, tomatoes..."

"No, thank you. I've eaten."

"Drink?" Snape asks from where he's refilling his own coffee. She hesitates then nods.

"Tea, thank you, Severus."

* * *

Harry's confused when he first wakes up, unable to figure out why he's not lying on a cold, hard floor with metal biting into his wrists and neck, but gradually the memories come back to him and slowly he relaxes, letting himself enjoy the warmth and comfort of his bed. As he lies there, he becomes aware of noise in the room, the crinkle of someone turning the pages of a book every so often.

"Who's there?"

"I am," Snape's voice answers. "How are you feeling?"

"Okay."

"You know where you are?"

"Home."

"Good." He hears a book being closed, the rustle of clothes, then: "Narcissa's downstairs. I'm going to fetch her to take a look at you."

"Okay."

* * *

"What are you doing?"

The Assistant spins, shooting Hermione a grin as she steps into the room he and Snape share. "Just looking. You alright?"

Hermione isn't suspicious when she asks, merely curious as to why the Assistant is rifling through Snape's potion kit and carry case, but she is now. She spent five years in the same Hogwarts house as Fred and George Weasley, who often felt she needed to loosen up and have a little fun, so she's learnt to recognise the signs of mischief and the Assistant is showing them all.

"What were you really doing? Professor Snape will be furious if you mess with his stuff."

"I'm not about to do _that_ ," he says and his tone and expression are completely serious now. "I'm not an idiot. I was just, y'know, looking at what he's got made up," he says, gesturing to the vials and jars in the carry case.

"Why?"

He sighs, closing it and the kit and pushing it under Snape's bed then moving over to his own and sitting on it, hands between his legs and fingers drumming then edge of the frame. "Just because I detoxed doesn't mean I lost the desire to drug myself. Did you want something?"

She steps further into the room, shutting the door behind her and fiddling with her fingers, not quite looking at him.

"This about yesterday's little revelation?" he asks, eyes flicking briefly to her stomach then back up again as she nods.

"Is magical abortion safe?"

"Safer than Muggle abortion, so far as I'm aware."

She nods, pulls at a bit of loose skin on her thumb. "And you know someone...?"

"Yeah. She's experienced, done plenty of them before."

"Licensed?"

"Not anymore. She got caught, but it'd take a cell in Azkaban for her to stop offering abortions to women that want them. She's a good woman."

Hermione inhales deeply and lets it out shakily. "Please could you ask her if she's willing to do one for me?"

He nods. "Sure. I'll get word to her and let you know when she gets back to me."

* * *

Harry can't help the small sigh of relief when he feels Draco's hand curl around his own. Narcissa checked him over and declared him healing as well as can be expected, he's been to the bathroom, and now he's propped up on pillows with Draco sat by him while he waits for Snape to bring him something to eat.

But Draco's the only one with him. He can't feel Riddle anywhere. He's heard no hissed reassurances since waking and he can't help wondering if he's really awake or if this is all some elaborate hallucination his mind has come up with to deal with his continued imprisonment. The warm curl of Draco's fingers around his hand makes it seem a bit more real, but the niggling little doubt remains.

"Did you sleep well?" Draco asks him and he shrugs slightly.

"I'm still tired."

"You slept for over twelve hours, but I suppose you probably need it."

"I dreamt about your dad, I think. We were talking."

"Just talking?" Draco asks, unable to keep the wariness from his voice.

"Yeah. I don't really remember what about."

"Harry, did... did my father ever hurt you? While you were being held?"

"No," he answers softly, tightening his grip just a little. "I never saw—he was never there."

"Good," Draco says, then clears his throat. "Good. Um... your grip seems stronger today."

"That's good."

"Yeah."

"Did you have any dreams?"

Green light fills Draco's vision for a split second. "No," he lies. "Not that I remember."

* * *

"Narcissa, can I have a word before you leave?"

Narcissa turns to the Assistant with a haughty expression of impatience.

"In private," he adds with a glance at where Tyler sits on the sofa, looking bored as he flicks through an old copy of the _Quibbler_ and idly pets Aurora.

"If you must," she says, moving through to the kitchen and then through to the garden, where the Assistant shoves his hands in his pockets and hunches his shoulders against the cold. "Make it quick."

"Fine. Are you willing to abort Hermione's child?"

Narcissa's expression doesn't flicker for an instant. "Abortions are illegal, Assistant."

He frowns at her. "You know my story, right? Who I am, where I come from, all that crap?"

"I know of your time loop, yes."

"Then cut the crap, Narcissa. Your counterpart in my timeline was imprisoned for performing abortions and I've never known a Narcissa Malfoy to not perform them. Will you do Hermione's?"

Her mouth tightens into a thin line at his words and she pales slightly at the idea of being imprisoned, but asks, "Is she willing to have me do it given my political stance and her blood status?"

"I never mentioned to her that it was you I'd be asking, just that I knew someone who did them. No point handing out names when you might not have been willing."

"I'm perfectly willing," she tells him, "assuming she is. But I will not waste my time with someone who believes me out to kill her or some such paranoia."

He nods. "I'll let her know. You coming by again later?"

"This evening."

"See you then."

"Assistant, if word of what I do reaches others' ears, I will cut out your tongue," she tells him calmly, as though she were announcing the breakfast menu, and vanishes before he has time to respond.

* * *

Tyler jerks awake at a hand shaking his shoulder and blinks up at Snape, who's scowling.

"If you're still tired, Mr Lyle, go back to bed."

Tyler yawns and stretches, dislodging Aurora as he glances around the sitting room. Through the door to the dining room he can see Hermione, Draco, and the Assistant engaged in a heated debate. "I'm not really. Just got used to sleeping through the day."

"Regardless, if you're going to then—"

A terrified scream rips through the house, cutting Snape off. He whirls, tearing up the stairs, wand in hand as he throws open the door to Harry's room. Harry's still in bed, but cowering against the headboard, Kiwi gripped in one hand, the other thrown out before him to ward off an invisible attacker.

"Harry, it's alright, calm down."

He keeps his voice soft, but Harry still flinches like he's been slapped and let's out a terrified, "Don't!"

"I'm not going to," Snape assures him. "It's just me. Your dad. I'm not going to hurt you, alright? There's no one here who'll hurt you, I promise."

Harry lets out a dry sob and draws his hand in, wrapping both arms around Kiwi and hugging her close as he draws his knees up. "I couldn't stop them," he says in a choked whisper. "I couldn't stop them, I couldn't stop them, I couldn't—"

He breaks off, pressing his face into purple fur, trembling all over. Snape pockets his wand and looks around at the others, all of whom followed him up at the sound of Harry's scream, but he glares pointedly and Hermione, Tyler, and the Assistant leave again. Draco sets his face and doesn't move. Snape doesn't argue with him, just moves further into the room, carefully approaching the bed.

"It wasn't your fault, Harry," Snape says gently, perching on the edge of the bed.

"I couldn't stop them," he says again. "I couldn't—I didn't want it! I didn't, I didn't, but I couldn't use magic and they was so heavy and I couldn't stop them and—I didn't want it, I didn't, I never—"

"I know you didn't," Snape tells him, struggling to keep his voice calm as his head fills with visions of wrapping his hands around someone's throat. "I know you didn't want it and it wasn't your fault, Harry."

"He's gone," Harry whispers and Snape's confused now because he sounds distressed about the fact. "Riddle's gone and I want him back. He said he'd protect me, he promised, but he can't if he's not here and I want him back! _Come back_ ," he pleads in Parseltongue. " _Please, please come back._ "

"Riddle?" Draco mutters questioningly. Snape glances at him but doesn't answer.

"Harry, I'm going to put my hand on your arm, alright?"

Harry doesn't respond, still hissing to himself, but although he falls silent when Snape touches him, he also jerks away, curling in on himself even tighter.

"You're safe now," Snape promises quietly. "I'm not going to let anyone else hurt you again."

Harry doesn't respond to his words, but asks, "Where's Draco?"

Draco approaches the bed. "I'm here."

Harry lifts his head slightly and extends a shaking hand then tugs slightly when Draco puts his in it. Snape moves out the way and Draco sits, facing Harry with one leg tucked under him, the other hanging off the bed. Harry lets go of his hand to blindly run it up Draco's arm, feeling over his shoulder and onto his neck then pausing, hesitating before slowly brushing his fingers up to Draco's face.

"Draco?"

"Yes?"

But Harry says nothing more, instead letting his fingers drift over him, feeling along cheekbones, brushing against eyelashes, slipping along the curve of his eyebrow, lingering on his lips. He combs his fingers through the pale blond hair just once, cups his cheek, and feels across his mouth again before shifting, moving closer as his hand drops to grab at Draco's robe, and then he leans forwards and ducks his head to press his face to Draco's chest as he collapses into sobs.

* * *

Hermione and Tyler are discussing cats when Neville Apparates into the sitting room. Hermione breaks off in the middle of complaining about cat tendencies to walk across laps with no care for where they dig their claws, her eyes full of sudden anger as she looks at him. Tyler glances between them, thinking he should excuse himself; he has no desire to get caught in the middle of their argument.

"Can we talk please?" Neville says to Hermione. For a moment she doesn't react and both boys think she's going to refuse, but then she gets up and stalks to the kitchen, saying nothing but clearly expecting Neville to follow her. Neville glances at Tyler, who gives a small 'good luck, rather you than me' smile and Neville follows after Hermione.

Hermione stands on the side of the kitchen by the archway to the dining room, arms folded over her chest and looking at Neville expectantly as he shuts the door and turns to face her. He sticks his hands in his pockets but takes them out again after just a few seconds, rubs them against his legs then folds them over his chest in imitation of her.

"I found a Muggle dictionary and looked up what an incubator is," he starts, not quite looking at her. "I don't think you're one of those."

She says nothing.

"I'm sorry, Hermione. I didn't mean what I said yesterday. It was just with everyone staring it came out all wrong. I know it's your body and you can do what you want with it, but—"

"There is no 'but', Neville."

"It's the baby's body you're getting rid of!"

"It doesn't have a body, not yet."

"But it will do. How can you want to get rid of that, Hermione? Can't you at least think about it?"

"I have thought about it and I've made my decision. I'm not ready to be a mum—you're not ready to be a dad—and this is hardly the world I would want to bring a child into anyway."

"My gran would help raise it, and you only found out yesterday; you haven't had time to properly think about it."

"It was confirmed yesterday," she corrects him. "I've suspected for two weeks now, since my... my period never came."

"You never told me," he says, hurt.

"I didn't know if I was right. I was stressed and our lives had changed dramatically; both are reason enough to upset my schedule. There was no point mentioning it in case it was nothing."

"But it's not nothing and now you're going to get rid of it."

"Yes, I am, and if you're only going to try and convince me otherwise, we're done talking."

"It's not even legal," he says desperately, hoping to appeal to her hatred of rule-breaking. "I know you said it is in the Muggle world but do you even know where to get one?"

"No," she admits, "but I don't need to. The Assistant knows a healer who does them. He's already agreed to ask her for me."

"The Assistant? You're going to trust him? He's a Death Eater, Hermione!"

"So is Harry, and Snape. It's not that black and white, Neville. Go home. My decision's made. I'm not wasting time arguing with you."

"Hermione, wait!"

She pauses just on the other side of the archway, looking at him but not moving.

"You can come home with me, if you want. There's more space at my gran's house than here. I promise I won't keep pestering you."

She smiles lightly. "I appreciate the offer, Neville, I really do, but I doubt your gran will like having me in her house. You told her, didn't you? I really doubt she will want me there when I'm planning to have an abortion. And this house has a lot of protections on it; I think it's safer for now, even if it is a bit crowded and full of blokes."

* * *

At lunch, Snape tries again to get Harry to take both the potions he needs to help his recovery, but when he tries to insist, Harry vanishes the one for his muscles and Snape can't help making an irritated noise.

"I am trying to help you, Harry. Take the potion."

" _I can't,_ " he says with a hint of desperation. "It's like dog food with vinegar."

"How would you know what dog food with vinegar is like?" Snape asks, mouth moving before he thinks, but Harry's silence and the way he curls up tighter tells Snape all he needs to know. His jaw clenches and he forces himself to keep the anger from his voice as he says, "Eat your lunch. Do you want me to sit with you until Draco comes up again?"

Harry shakes his head slightly.

"Alright. I'll be in the other room."

His own appetite has fled, but the bottle of vodka is in the other bedroom, though he's not sure why or when he put it there nor does he much care, and he downs two shots of it before he starts brewing a poison, glad that he has the ingredients to make one. The act of cutting and stirring, dicing and crushing, watching the mixture change colour as it comes together, waiting for that telltale little curl of steam and the distinctive smell that signifies it's ready for the final ingredient that turns it from mildly toxic water to one of the most painful poisons in history of wizardkind helps to ease his temper, the careful actions forcing his mood to abate so he can concentrate and not fuck up. The fact that he's making a poison helps, makes him feel like he's actually doing something useful.

But it doesn't last. The moment it's finished brewing and he can leave it to cool, he slumps on the bed and covers his face with both hands. He knew there would have been humiliations inflicted on Harry as well as pain; it's a basic torture technique, a method to squash the victim's spirit in a way that pain couldn't, and he knows just as much that food is an easy and obvious one to use in the other basic torture technique of manipulation and control. Harry's physical state is testament that his food has been sparse in the past few months and his behaviour when Snape brings him meals only confirms that it was taken from him, likely with taunting remarks and the promise that it would only be given if he begged for it, but the thought that they might actually have fed him dog food...

He wants to kill all of them. Everyone that laid a finger on him, that even looked at him—even Lucius, for the bare fact of doing nothing to help until his own family was in danger. He hates them all and wants every one of them dead, preferably in painful and humiliating manners.

And under it all is a bitter, burning hatred for himself and his inability to save him, all tangled up with a raging guilt over the failed escape attempt with James and Sirius. He's a failure and he doesn't deserve the child lying across the hall, but he has him and it's his responsibility to do whatever he can to make Harry as healthy as possible and try and make the last six months of his life as close to good as is possible after everything else. Only then will he wallow in his self-hatred. He put himself before Harry too many times and this is his last chance to do the opposite.


	102. Chapter 102

"I asked my contact if she'll do your abortion. She's agreed as long as you're willing."

Hermione taps her fingers against the dining room table, empty lunch plate in front of her and the Assistant sat opposite her. "Well of course I'm willing. I wouldn't have asked otherwise."

"No, I get that. There's just the issue that she happens to be a blood purist."

"Oh," Hermione says. "She doesn't have to know I'm Muggleborn anyway."

"She already knows."

"You told her?" she asks, feeling slightly betrayed.

"Not exactly. She just already knew."

"How?" she asks, but then a thought occurs to her. "It's Ms Black, isn't it?"

"Yes. Don't tell anyone."

Hermione bites her lip, hand drifting to her stomach and looking unsure.

"She wouldn't harm you," he assures her. "Her professional pride wouldn't let her, no matter your blood status."

"I guess I don't really have much of a choice," she sighs. "I don't know anyone else that can do it."

* * *

"Assistant?" Tyler says an hour later while the Assistant's restlessly pacing the living room.

"What?" he snaps, then sighs, turns to the boy, and apologises. "I'm sorry. What did you want?"

"I was going to ask you to stop pacing, but I guess I can ask if you could just pace somewhere else. It's kind of annoying."

The Assistant nods stiffly and heads for the dining room then changes his mind and takes the stairs instead. Harry's door is open and he pauses outside it, looking in to see Harry lying on his side in bed, tucked under the duvet and Kiwi clutched in his arms. He turns his head slightly when the Assistant stops.

"Who's there?"

"The Assistant. Can I come in?"

Harry nods. The room is a little more crowded than it was yesterday, now with three beds instead of two.

"You mind if I borrow a book from your trunk? I could use something to distract my mind right now."

"Will you read to me?"

"Sure, if that's what you want. Any—" A book appears on the bed by Harry "—preference," the Assistant finishes unnecessarily. He goes to pick it up, but it lifts off the bed and floats towards him until he takes it out of the air, and he sits on one of the spare beds. The book's titled _The Complete Encyclopaedia of British Wizarding History, Volume 3_ and he opens it at the start and begins reading about medieval England.

Half an hour later, though, Harry interrupts him to ask, "Assistant, why don't you stop the Dark Lord?"

The Assistant closes the book and sets it aside, drawing his feet up to sit cross-legged and resting his elbows on his knees before he answers. "My Master carved magic suppression runes into my skin. I can't do much of anything anymore."

Harry's face turns towards him, expression pure horror. "He carved them into your _skin_? He took away your magic completely?"

The Assistant nods, remembers he can't see, and says, "Yep. I'm basically a squib now."

Harry shudders, clutching Kiwi tighter. "Will you read more?"

* * *

Harry asks to feel the Assistant's runes when he stops reading just after six that evening, needing to take a break and get some food. There's a brief pause after he asks, but the Assistant agrees and comes over to sit on the edge of Harry's bed. Harry sits up, keeping Kiwi held under one arm while the other reaches blindly for the Assistant until he feels a hand touch his own. He can't help flinching, but he takes it, feeling the scar tissue on the back.

"They're all over you?"

"Head to toe."

The Assistant takes Harry's hand, lifting it to his face and Harry feels another mound of scar tissue on the Assistant's cheek, shaped just as the one on his hand, but Harry jerks away, shivering. The thought of someone doing that to him, or even to anyone else, is horrifying. He wonders if he could heal it; he's never tried to heal scars before, but when he's about to open his mouth and offer to try, coldness washes over his back and all through his skull, sudden enough to make him gasp but blessedly familiar, and even without words he knows suddenly what it wants—what Riddle wants. He's not sure why Riddle wants him to leave the Assistant's runes untouched, but he's so grateful for this indication that Riddle's not completely gone that he doesn't question it.

"You alright?"

He nods, drawing back. "You can go get food now."

* * *

Narcissa comes by before dinner and stays the evening. She brings clothes for Draco, saying James had the forethought to have Draco's stuff packed up in Slytherin and his trunk sent back to the Manor to further support the story that he's sick. His eagle owl also arrives.

When Draco takes Harry his dinner, he's surprised to find the other boy sat on the floor next to his open trunk with several books splayed out around him. He's got one open in front of him and is running his fingers over the pages, which, Draco notices as he draws closer, now have raised lettering.

"Food?" Harry asks, fingers pausing on the page.

"Yes, but you should be in bed."

Harry just lifts his hands expectantly.

"Snape said you have to take this potion first."

Harry's nose wrinkles but he says nothing as Draco hands him the potion, then he holds out both hands again.

"Don't you want to move to the bed at least so you can—" he breaks off with a surprised yelp as the bowl of soup flies out of his hands and into Harry's, all without spilling a drop. He scowls as Harry lowers it and instantly begins spooning it into his mouth. "A simple no would have sufficed."

"You wouldn't give me it," Harry says between mouthfuls.

"I was just saying it might be easier to eat from the bed."

"You wouldn't give me it," he mutters again. Draco sighs and lowers himself to sit opposite him, turning the open book to have a look at it.

"Runes. Somehow I'm not surprised. That reminds me, your NEWT results came to me during the summer. I'm not sure why, but they did. I hope you don't mind that I opened them."

Harry pauses, lifting his head. "What did I get?"

"An O in History of Magic and an E in Ancient Runes."

Harry huffs. "I knew it. Still annoyed. I wanted an O."

Draco smiles slightly, glad for this brief instance of normality and hoping it's a good sign for Harry's recovery.

"So why are you reading these?" Draco asks when Harry finishes eating and pulls the book back, fingers once more drifting over the pages. "Also, you do know there's a spell to make books read aloud?"

"It won't read the runes. I'm looking for the inversion and repulsion ones."

"The ones you wanted to get tattooed on? Why?" he asks when Harry nods, but gets no answer. "Do you still want to get it done?" he tries, but Harry still says nothing. "Will you please talk to me?" he demands, unable to keep the frustration out of his voice, then feels guilty when Harry shrinks back. He sighs. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to..."

"It wouldn't have happened," Harry says quietly. "If I'd had the tattoos, it wouldn't have happened. They wouldn't have caught me. They wouldn't have—" he cuts himself off, then finishes, "It wouldn't have happened."

They search together until they find the right runes. Harry asks Draco to draw each of them out in large on a bit of parchment and Draco agrees, though he's not entirely sure what Harry's planning. He's got a bad feeling in his gut, but he has no inclination to upset the other boy so does as he's asked and watches as Harry Wishes the runes to become raised, as he had with the books, brushing his fingers over them.

"Worried I've got it wrong?"

"I'm just checking."

Draco's slightly offended that he doubts his accuracy, but he says nothing on it. "What now?"

"I'm tired."

Draco nods and starts tidying up the mess they've made. "Let's get you back in bed then."

Harry keeps hold of the bit of parchment with the runes, but levitates everything else messily into his trunk, surprising Draco as a pile of books jump out of his hands.

"Little warning next time?" he asks dryly.

"Sorry," Harry replies unapologetically, unsteadily getting to his feet and returning to his bed.

"Are you planning to sleep with that?"

Harry's response is to slide the bit of parchment under his pillow. Draco wants to ask why but he doubts he'll get an answer so doesn't bother. "Can I lie with you?"

Harry looks surprised. "Why?"

"Because I love you and want to hold you." He pauses, then adds, "I'll keep you safe."

Harry hesitates, dragging Kiwi against his chest, but nods. He tenses when Draco climbs in the bed with him and shudders and pulls away when Draco tries to spoon him.

"Not like that."

"How?"

Harry rolls over to face him, draws his knees up and curls around Kiwi, but rests his forehead against Draco's chest and doesn't pull away when Draco's gently lays his arm across him. It's not as close as Draco would like, but it's something and he's got no desire to make Harry feel threatened or uncomfortable.

When Snape looks in on them before going to bed, he's surprised to see Harry and Draco curled up together, both fast asleep. He doesn't wake them, but he does cast a protection spell on Draco. He's painfully familiar with Harry's reaction to unexpected stimuli and the last thing any of them need is Harry accidentally harming Draco.

* * *

_Cold hands flit across his back and a cold body presses against his front, but he has no inclination to pull away. He clings to the slim waist, lets his legs tangle with a pair stronger and longer than his, and stares at the beautiful face before him, relishing this chance to see something that isn't the memory of Macnair's leering face, the last face he ever saw and which is etched in his memory forever._

_"You went away."_

_"I never go away."_

_"I couldn't hear you. You weren't there."_

_"Of course I was there, Harry." Lips brush against his own. Cold breath on his skin and a shiver runs down his spine. He clings harder and closes his eyes as nails scratch lightly across his flesh. "I'm always here, Harry. Always."_

* * *

As with the night before, Riddle cloaks himself in invisibility before Apparating into the Malfoy Manor drawing room, just in case Narcissa should happen to be staying up late or Death Eaters are making a late night visit for reasons unknown or the house elf is cleaning. He appears on the floor on one side of the room, where he won't be in anyone's way if there is someone there, and Wishes for anyone in the house to fall asleep. There's no sound of bodies suddenly dropping so he assumes he's alone and forces Harry's weak body to stand up. Once on his feet he doesn't bother with walking, simply levitates himself to hover a few inches off the floor then makes a Wish that has his finger pointing towards the chairs, guiding him in the right direction. Only when he's seated does he make a Wish for Lucius to come join him.

"Do you use some kind of compulsion to bring me down here?"

"Would you prefer I came directly to your bedroom?" Riddle responds to Lucius' annoyed question. There's a long pause and he adds, "I'm blind, Lucius; if you're giving me a look its effect is entirely wasted on me."

"I'm merely wondering how you would know which is my bedroom."

"I don't, but I need only Wish to be in _your_ room as opposed to _a_ room and I will appear there. Are you going to sit down?"

There's a rustle of movement then the light puff of air moving as Lucius sits.

"I have a task for you, Lucius." He hears fingers drumming and cocks his head with a slight smile. "Are you unwilling, Lucius?"

"If I say yes, do you plan to torture me?" he asks dryly, but there's a sliver of wariness in the question that says he honestly does expect it. Riddle lets his smile widen.

"No," he answers honestly. "I have no intention of torturing you, Lucius. I am not the Dark Lord; I have no interest in abusing my people. Positive reinforcement is far more effective than pain in guaranteeing loyalty."

"You have no people," Lucius points out. "Thus far all you have is me."

"Precisely what I wanted to discuss with you. I need you to write a report on the Dark Lord's Death Eaters. Not the cavalry, obviously, just the Inner Circle. Their strengths, weaknesses, abilities, personality. It always struck me that he allows a number of imbecilic fools into the circle. I have no intention of allowing that when I am king. I want intelligent, strong followers. But also their beliefs, the strength of their conviction in what we do. I need to know who I can call to my side the moment my reign begins. I cannot start my monarchy with only you. Oh, and be sure to include your personal opinion on each."

"My opinion?"

"Of course. You are my chief advisor, Lucius. You opinion is valued. Particularly in this; you know these people and have done for a long while. You can tell me things that I cannot learn otherwise."

"And when do you expect this report?" Lucius asks, and Riddle's glad to hear his tone is a little more willing, losing some of the obvious scepticism he feels about giving his loyalty to Riddle.

"I expect you to start immediately, but there is no rush. I don't expect to be strong enough to even consider reabsorbing the rest of my soul for a month yet."

"That long?"

"You sound disappointed."

"I hardly relish the prospect of keeping a furious Dark Lord in my cellar for a month."

"Understandable, but there's nothing to be done. This body was horribly abused; it will take time to recover. My trips here will not help, so do not expect to see me for a week. I also have another task for you, one you can relegate to James, as long as you can assure he doesn't speak of it."

"Of course I can," Lucius says with a hint of reproach. "He is my Slave."

"I need him to research two things: firstly, soul transfers between bodies. I know for certain there's a book in the Hogwarts library that contains a ritual that will do it. I also need anything he can find on transferring magic between persons. I fully intend to take all of Harry's power with me when I return to my own body. My elder self failed in several attempts whilst I was locked up; I believe that taking it with me when I leave Harry will do what my other self couldn't."

Lucius nods. "I will speak with him in the morning."

"Good. Make sure he realises the importance of this task. I will see you in a week, Lucius."

* * *

Harry doesn't remember waking, but he's in the bathroom with a bit of parchment in his hands. He hopes he didn't disturb Draco when he got up and he makes a Wish for everyone in the house to remain asleep. He knows that all of them would try to stop him from what he's about to do, but he needs to do it. He has to make himself safe.

He flattens the parchment on the tiled floor and sits leant against the bath tub. Just sitting up leaves him drained and he wants to go back to bed and sleep more. He's just so horribly weak. He knows that's another reason he shouldn't be doing this—besides the fact that any sane person would consider it incredibly idiotic—but he needs to get it done. He can't bare to leave himself in such danger when he has a way to put it right.

He Wishes his pyjamas off to save the effort of undressing then reaches for the parchment. The runes are still raised and he rubs his fingers over them repeatedly, memorising them by touch and sharpening the image he has in mind, remembering how they looked drawn on his hands all those months ago. Then he makes a Wish.

He's glad for Wishing everyone to remain asleep because he lets out a pained cry despite expecting it. He sits gasping weakly, feeling blood trickle down his skin and whimpering as the feel of it evokes a number of unpleasant memories, but he has to let it. He can't heal them because he needs the scars.

Only when he passes out does it occur to him that, although the wounds aren't deep, doing so many at once, especially when he's so weak anyway, may not have been the best idea. Just before unconsciousness consumes him, he feels a rush of cold all through him, thinks he hears a single hissed, " _Idiot_ ," and has a fleeting thought to remove the sleeping compulsion.

* * *

It's Tyler who finds him, stumbling half asleep to use the toilet and almost tripping over him then letting out a shriek that brings the others running. Snape roughly shoves Tyler aside and crouches by the blood covered boy sprawled on the bathroom floor, face white as he moves his wand over him and chants a song-like spell that has the blood flow easing and the wounds knitting together. Every part of him from head to foot is coated in a thin layer of blood.

"Was he attacked?" Tyler asks in a terrified whisper.

"No one can get in," the Assistant says.

"But that hasn't been tested," Hermione points out. "What if—"

"No," Snape interrupts quietly, having murmured a Cleansing Spell to siphon the blood off Harry's skin, allowing him to look closer at the injuries that are now scabbed over as though several days old. "He did this to himself."

" _Why?_ "

"Oh god," Draco breathes, bending to scoop up a blood stained bit of parchment.

"What is that?" Snape demands.

"Runes. Inversion and repulsion runes. They can be used to counteract magic suppression. He was going to get them tattooed on his hands, back in April, but the tattoo shop closed down and he never got them done. He was looking at them earlier and he said that if he had them then he wouldn't have been caught by the Death Eaters, but I never thought..." he trails off, staring at Harry.

Snape's gaze lifts to the Assistant. "You told him about yours, didn't you?"

"I didn't think it would make him do this," the Assistant replies defensively. "Don't look at me like this is my fault, Severus."

Snape has Draco fetch a Blood Replenishing Potion from the kit in his bedroom and takes Harry back to his own room, feeding him the potion while he's still unconscious and using a spell to make him swallow, then he casts a spell that works almost as an invisible bandage, allowing him to put Harry's pyjamas back on him without worrying that they'll rub and reopen the wounds.

* * *

The first thing Harry's aware of when he wakes is pain—mild, but there. The second is a hand against his head. He instinctively jerks away from it and lashes out with magic, hearing a faint grunt even as he gasps at the sharp stab of pain the movement sends through him.

"You're safe," someone says, and it takes a moment for him to realise it's Snape's voice. "Harry, you're safe."

Then he remembers his plan, remembers sitting on the bathroom floor and Wishing injuries on himself. On the tail of that comes the thought that he really is completely insane. Four months of torture in which he only ever wanted the pain to stop and now, just a day after he's freed from it, he's inflicting pain on himself. Added to the fact that he actually misses his hallucination of the teenage Dark Lord, there's no doubt that his sanity is completely wrecked.

He moves his hand and fingers his other arm, feelings scabs that feel days old, but they're the runes, he's sure of it. They feel right, but he needs—

"Parchment," he says. "The parchment, where is it?"

"Draco," Snape says, then there's a rustle of parchment and he feels it pressed into his hand. He flattens it on the bed and runs his hand over it, feeling, memorising, then touching his arm again, and lets out a weak, triumphant laugh.

"Safe," he murmurs. "Safe, safe, safe..."

"Harry?"

"Safe, safe, safe..."

Snape takes the parchment and slowly draws it away from Harry. He doesn't try to hold onto it, but he doesn't fall quiet until Snape carefully takes his hands, holding them away from the self-inflicted injuries. Snape hears Draco turn abruptly and leave the room, but doesn't look around to see.

"Harry, do you know who I am?"

Harry nods.

"Tell me."

"Dad," Harry says quietly, confusion in his voice.

"Do you know where you are?"

"Home."

"Tell me why you hurt yourself."

"Isn't—" Tyler starts but Snape shoots him a harsh glare and he shuts up.

"I had to make myself safe," Harry says. "I had to make myself safe. They can't take away my magic now. They can't hurt me. I won't let them."

Snape bows his head, closing his eyes for a moment and swallowing thickly. "No," he whispers. "No, they won't. Harry, promise me you won't do this again."

Harry's head turns towards him, expression confused. "I don't need to."

"Promise me anyway. Say you won't hurt yourself again, for any reason. You could have killed yourself tonight; promise me you won't hurt yourself again."

Harry doesn't respond immediately and Snape resists the urge to grab his shoulders and shake him, demanding that he promise and calling him an idiot for doing it in the first place.

"I promise," he says eventually, and it sounds so sincere that for a moment Snape's actually surprised.

"Thank you."


	103. Chapter 103

"You okay?"

Draco doesn't look around, standing in the hall with his palms and forehead pressed to the wall, eyes closed.

"He'll be alright," Tyler says, even though he thinks 'alright' is something Harry Evans will never be.

"He's insane," Draco mutters. Tyler doesn't argue with him. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do. I can't help him and I _hate_ it."

Tyler has no idea what he's supposed to say to that. He's not sure there's anything he can say. He doubts even Saint Mungo's best healers could do much to help Harry at this point.

"Boys," Snape calls from inside the room, "come here, please."

Draco inhales shakily, lets it out in a rush then straightens and turns, walking back into the room. Tyler admires his fortitude; he doesn't think he'd be able to deal half as well if he had a lover tortured into insanity. But then he's never loved anyone the way Harry and Draco love each other.

Snape shifts aside to let Draco kneel by the bed, head level with Harry. He notices the tiny shake in Draco's hand as he reaches to stroke Harry's hair, the tense set of his jaw, and the telltale gleam in his eye that says he's on the brink of tears. Tyler hovers nearby with Hermione, just barely close enough to be part of the group, and the Assistant has returned to his bed.

"Dad said I scared you."

Draco closes his eyes and ducks his head but it's not enough to hide the tears that slip down his pale cheeks. He bites at his lip, clearly trying to hold back a sob that he doesn't want Harry to hear. Tyler glances at Snape, searching for help in what he's supposed to say, but Snape's gaze is on Harry.

"Draco?" The word's desperate and quiet, and one of Harry's hands pulls away from Snape's to reach out towards Draco. It finds his shoulder and slides up to his face from there. When he feels the tears on Draco's face, his breath hitches. "Draco, don't. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. Please don't cry, Draco."

"I thought you were dead," Draco chokes out then takes a deep, shuddering breath, trying to hold back the sobs even as tears continue to fall.

"I'm sorry," Harry whispers, tears leaking from his own false eye. "I'm sorry, I didn't—I'm not dead. I'm okay. I'm safe now, I didn't mean to scare you." He lets out a sob, his hand slipping down to curl around the back of Draco's neck. "Draco, please—"

Draco leans forward, pressing his lips to Harry's cheek, ignoring his flinch, hand still stroking his hair and the other coming up to lay over the one pressed to his own neck. "Don't ever do that again," he whispers. "Harry, please don't ever scare me like that again. I love you. I can't—I can't lose you."

"I won't. You won't. I love you," he says. "I love you, I love you, just... I'm sorry."

"I'm gonna... go," Tyler says. "I'll sleep on the couch for the rest of the night."

He has no part in this and he knows it, but even as he backs towards the door, Harry calls out, "Wait."

He pauses but doesn't move forward again. Draco sits back, shifting slightly so Harry's face can look past him towards Tyler and Hermione, who has tears in her own eyes.

"I'm sorry," Harry says. "I didn't mean to scare you either."

Tyler shrugs, remembers the uselessness of it. "It's fine, y'know. You're alright so... it's fine."

He makes to leave again but this time Snape's words stop him. "Mr Lyle, you can sleep in the other room with the Assistant. I will stay in here for the night."

"Right. Thanks, sir," he says, and hurries out.

"I hope you get better soon, Harry," Hermione says before she leaves as well, not knowing what else to say and refusing to lie like Tyler and say she's not unnerved by Harry's actions.

* * *

Everyone wakes late the next morning. Tyler is the last up and after eating breakfast he asks to talk to the Assistant alone.

"Will you come with me to see Mr Swift?"

"You want me to?"

"I have a right to confront him," he says defensively.

"Not arguing with you, but I just didn't expect you to want me to go as well. We hardly know each other."

"I know, but you're the only one that knows and I don't want to go alone. He'll probably throw me out the minute I mention the possibility of him being my father."

"If you want me to, sure. But you realise I can't convince him of the truth? I'm not telling my story to him. However," he adds when Tyler opens his mouth to argue, "you could ask Severus to brew a Paternity Potion. Swift won't be able to argue with that."

"I'd have to tell Snape," Tyler says reluctantly.

"Just tell him I know who your father is, but there's no need to tell him who it is if you don't want to. But we're going to need someone to help us with transport, and I don't know where Swift lives. I assume you do."

Tyler nods. "Nottingham. I'll ask Snape, I guess."

The day passes quietly and uneventfully. Snape tells Tyler he'll need a recipe for the Paternity Potion and points out that he should write to his supposed father before turning up on his doorstep claiming to be his illegitimate son, something that Tyler agonises over for days. Narcissa, when she visits that evening, says she has a book with the recipe in and agrees to bring it and buy the necessary ingredients for it the next day, then requests to speak with Hermione and the two women go up to the master bedroom to talk.

"Do you know how far along you are?"

"A little over four weeks."

"Are you certain?"

Hermione nods. "It was the first and only time," she mutters, staring at her hands.

"In that case, you will require only a potion. Were you more than nine weeks, it would also require a spell. The potion will cause cramps and menstrual-like bleeding for two-to-four days, during which you can take mid-to-high strength pain potions. Severus has both, I believe."

"Thank you, Ms Black."

"I will have the potion ready for you in a few days. You will meet me opposite the Cowell Street coffee shop in North Burnham, near Salisbury, at eleven o'clock on Wednesday morning and you will not tell anyone else that I am providing you with this potion, especially not my son."

Hermione nods.

"Do you have any questions?"

"Why are you doing this?"

Narcissa raises an eyebrow. "You need an abortion; I provide them."

"I meant, why do you do them at all? You're a blood purist; why would you give witches abortions when it destroys magical children? Or do you only provide them to Muggleborns?"

"I provide abortions to any witch that desires them, because however logical the reasons for making them illegal, and while the law may allow that certain health issues necessitate an abortion, the fact remains that the law was written by men who will never understand what it is to have to carry a child. I may be a blood purist, but I am also a feminist and I will do what I must to further feminist values in the wizarding world, even if it means I occasionally have to stand alongside women of impure blood."

* * *

Neville comes by on Tuesday to see how Harry is but can't resist making another attempt to convince Hermione to change her mind; she loses her temper and hexes him, much to Draco's amusement. No one questions it when she goes out Wednesday morning. Tyler eventually gets a letter written to Mr Swift and nervously sends it off with Draco's eagle owl, who's glad for something to do.

* * *

"Dad?"

Snape glances up from the book he's reading aloud from to look across the bedroom at Harry. "Yes?"

"Will you take James' Bond?"

Snape stares at him. "What?"

"I don't want Lucius to have it. He's bad. He makes James do bad things. Can't you take it?"

"Harry, are you mad? Do you realise who you're asking? I'm a worse candidate to be his Master than Lucius is."

"You wouldn't make him do bad things."

"Your faith in me is vastly overblown, Harry. I despise Potter; you have no idea what I'd make him do. Why would you even ask me?"

"There's no one else," Harry says. "Sirius and Remus are dead and I'm crazy and there's no one else to do it. I don't want Lucius to have it. He's bad."

Snape shakes his head. "Harry, I can't take Potter's Bond. It's—just... no. Go to sleep; you need more rest."

Harry spends most of his time resting and his recovery is slow but steady... physically, at least. His mental state remains questionable. At times he seems fine and will talk to everyone about anything mundane, but become easily upset if left alone for too long. Books help with that and often someone takes a book and reads aloud to him or he makes the books read themselves, but that results in a droning voice not dissimilar to Professor Binns, which manages to make even the most exciting books sound dull.

At other times, he becomes inconsolably distressed, curling up on his bed, alternating between stoic silence and desperate mutterings in Parseltongue that the Assistant says are pleadings for Riddle to come back. He withdraws from anyone that tries to touch him and becomes violent if they persist, and they have no option but to wait it out.

He's also incapable of a full night's sleep, waking from nightmares, often screaming. Tyler and Snape swap beds permanently and Snape puts a Silencing Charm on Harry's bedroom so the Assistant, Tyler, and Hermione can sleep without being disturbed. But Harry at least accepts comfort at those times, though only from Draco, to whom he clings as he cries, occasionally saying what he's dreamt about. Draco never complains about being put in such a position, but Snape can see it gets to the boy. There are shadows under his own eyes and a couple of times he Apparates to the Manor, where Snape has a feeling he's probably venting his emotions by breaking things and crying where no one can see him. Snape wishes he could do the same.

On Friday Snape leaves the Assistant in charge and, under Polyjuice using hair from a random Muggle, Apparates to the nearest wizarding grocers to get more food. He pays with money from Draco, Tyler, and Harry. He has none himself, nor does the Assistant, and Hermione has very little, though she offers what she does have. But Tyler, Draco, and Harry all have substantial amounts in their trunks and enough in their Gringotts vaults that they don't bash an eyelid at putting what they have on them towards the house's food shopping, and Tyler gives extra to get food for Aurora as well.

Snape shops quickly; although initially eager to get out of the house and on his own for a little while, the minute he leaves he starts worrying about Harry. He doesn't like leaving him alone and although the Assistant promises to stay with him, Snape doesn't think that's really a whole lot better. He half expects to get back and find the house burning down after being left to four teenagers and the Assistant.

Though he has to admit he's impressed at how well the kids are getting along, particularly Hermione and Draco. He expected to have to stop them arguing every ten minutes, but they manage to be civil towards each other. He hasn't once heard Draco call Hermione a Mudblood and he wonders if that's Harry's influence, and though he'll never admit it he's grateful for the Assistant, if only for his help with Tyler, who is, understandably, having a difficult time adjusting to his lost magic.

On Saturday, Snape convinces Harry to venture downstairs. Thus far he stays in his room except to use the bathroom, but as his recovery progresses Snape wants him to move about more and he thinks maybe escaping the confines of his bedroom will help his mental state a little.

The stairs prove a challenge. Harry's legs are still weak and he clings to the banister, carefully feeling his way down each step, and he's just glad to reach the bottom without falling, even if Snape stays in front of him for just such an instance. He sits in the armchair and although he doesn't talk much, he does accept a blanket when Snape offers and when he hears Aurora meow he asks to hold her and seems content to sit with a lap full of purring cat for the next few hours.

"Oh god."

Tyler's words make Hermione pause in the middle of reading aloud from _Sites of Historical Sorcery_. Draco shakes himself out of his daydream and Harry stiffens.

"What is it?"

"Owl," Tyler says, staring at the window and making no move to answer it.

"From who?"

Tyler swallows. "I think probably my supposed father."

When he still doesn't move, Draco rolls his eyes and gets up, going to the window to let the bird in. It settles on the sill and holds out its leg then leaves as soon as Draco's taken the letter. He pulls the window shut then returns to his seat, holding out the letter to Tyler, who takes it in a shaking hand. Draco and Hermione watch him slit it open then he stands without removing the contents and hurries into the kitchen to read it in private.

* * *

"Assistant?"

He turns away from the window as Tyler comes into the bedroom and closes the door behind him, and shoots the boy a smile. "You alright?"

"I got a letter from Mr Swift," Tyler says, staring at said letter as he holds it in his hands.

"What'd he say?"

"He says he remembers my mum and he's willing to use a Paternity Potion, but he's having his own made as well so he can be sure it's not tampered with."

"Understandable," the Assistant says, watching him. "He say anything else?"

"He asked me not to mention it to Cid, Layla, or Mrs Swift until anything's been confirmed, and said I can come on Wednesday, if it's convenient." He pauses, still staring at the letter, then asks, "Are you sure it's him?"

"Lot of things change in different timelines; genetics isn't one of them."

* * *

Narcissa comes over on Sunday, asks Hermione a few questions about how the potion affected her, then casts _Confirmare Vitaminvita_. There's no orange glow around her stomach this time. Hermione thanks her and then leaves the house, Apparating to York.

She takes a deep breath as she lifts her hand to knock on the door of the Longbottom home. The seven seconds it takes for Augusta Longbottom to answer it seems to last for an eternity and she stands nervously, half-tempted to Apparate back to Coleford. She knows what's about to happen won't be pretty, but Neville deserves to know.

"Oh," Mrs Longbottom says when she opens the door. "It's you."

"Hello, Mrs Longbottom," Hermione replies, pretending she's not hurt by the other woman's tone. Stern as Neville's gran is, she liked Hermione. She even made more than a few embarrassing remarks about marriage when Hermione visited before, but all that is gone now. "May I speak to Neville please?"

Mrs Longbottom sniffs. "Wait here."

The door closes in Hermione's startled face. She realises Mrs Longbottom doesn't like her any more, but that's just _rude_.

"I'm sorry," Neville apologises the moment he opens the door. "Come in."

She gives a small smile and steps through the door. Neville closes it behind her and gestures down the hall towards the kitchen. "Do you want something to drink?"

"No, thank you. Neville—"

"Come sit down."

"No, Neville..." She grabs his arm, stopping him from moving away. "I don't think you want me to stay. I just came to tell you..." she inhales deeply, lets it out shakily, and finishes, "that I've done it. The abortion."

"OUT!"

Both teens jump and a door to one side that Hermione knows leads to the sitting room is thrown open so a furious Mrs Longbottom can step into the hall.

"OUT!" she shrieks again. "Get out, you horrible girl! I will not have you in my house! Out!"

Hermione, alarmed and a little afraid, glances at Neville, but he provides no help. He looks betrayed, hurt, and angry, and Hermione gets the feeling that he never really believed she'd go through with it. Feeling the sting of tears behind her eyes, she clenches her jaw, turns on the spot, and Disapparates.

She doesn't go back to Coleford, not wanting to be stuck in that house with the others, and instead reappears in Oxford, in a little alley not far from her home—or what used to be her home. She walks to it and can't help the tears spilling down her cheeks as she looks at the house she grew up in, now empty and forlorn looking with a FOR SALE sign stuck in the front garden. Unable to bear it, she turns away, walking quickly along familiar streets until she comes to the park she used to play in as a kid. It's empty at the minute and she sits down on a swing, wrapping one arm around the chain and letting herself cry silently for the things she's lost—her home, her family, her education, and now, she's fairly certain, her best friend. She sheds a few tears for the child she's lost too. She doesn't regret it, and she knows if it happened again she would make exactly the same choice, but there's still a part of her that feels bad for what she's done.

* * *

Lucius stares. He doesn't care that it's rude nor that he's staring at what is essentially the Dark Lord, who is dangerous even when he doesn't have access to Harry's considerable power; he just can't drag his eyes from the figure in front of him which is sporting a great deal more scars than the last time Lucius saw him.

"Not pretty, is it?" Riddle says.

Lucius moves over to the chair, sitting and still staring at him. "I suppose it's a good thing you've never been vain," he manages to say, and Riddle smiles.

"Indeed."

"I have _The Path of Souls_ ," Lucius tells him. "James is still researching the magic issue."

"I want it. I want to study the ritual before I enact it."

"It's in my study."

Riddle holds out his hands and the book appears, resting on both palms. He runs his fingers over it, holds it up, and points to the back cover. "Front or back?"

"Back."

He flips it, lays it down on his lap, presses his hand flat to it, and a toneless voice not unlike the drab tones of Professor Binns says, "The Path of Souls."

"How's your report on the Death Eaters coming?" Riddle asks as he opens the book. It immediately starts reading the title page in that same dull voice. He flips the page, cutting it off in the middle of reciting the copyright information, and it reads the contents instead.

"Well."

"Good."

"Chapter eight, The Art of Soul Transfers, page two hundred and six," the book drones, and Riddle lifts both hands. The pages of the book turn themselves as if hit by a strong wind until they get two thirds of the way through and then suddenly falling still. "Chapter eight," it begins reading.

"And how's James?"

"Fine."

Riddle closes the book, holding his fingers between the pages and turning his face towards Lucius with a slight frown. "Is there a problem, Lucius?"

"Why would you ask that?"

"You appear to have developed a fondness for one word answers."

"I don't appreciate making conversation over the reading of a book," he says.

"Ah, of course. My apologies, Lucius."

Lucius finds himself glad Riddle is blind; it means he can't see the surprise on his face.

"I'll ask again, then. How is James? I admit I struggle to imagine him as headmaster."

"He's competent, but doesn't particularly enjoy it. He says he prefers plain teaching."

"I presume he was given the position to try and ease the minds of the parents, given his fame as a light wizard. Or is his Death Eater status common knowledge?"

"No, but suspected. The rest of the staff are aware that his strings are being pulled and the students are quickly figuring it out or being told by the Death Eaters' children. They certainly don't believe he's wholly light when he does nothing to stop the Carrows."

"The new Defence Against the Dark Arts professors, correct?"

"It's just Dark Arts now; the Dark Lord wants them educated in dark magic. Amycus teaches that; his sister Alecto is the new Muggle Studies professor."

Riddle's eyebrows jump. "I'm surprised that's even still a subject."

Lucius smiles. "The syllabus has been overhauled. It no longer a Muggle-lovers subject but a lesson in exactly how the filth will ruin the wizarding world if we don't stamp them out."

Riddle smirks, humming his approval.

"Might I ask..." Lucius starts slowly.

"Why I'm sporting the Assistant's latest fashion?"

"If you want to put it like that," Lucius says dryly and Riddle smiles.

"Harry took it upon himself to ensure no one could ever again chain us as the Dark Lord did. Unattractive as they are, these runes effectively counteract the magic suppression ones. I cannot argue with the idea, but he did very nearly kill us when he did it."

"Is that so?"

"Hmm. He decided to carve them into us all at once. We very nearly bled to death; scared the life out of Severus by all accounts."

Lucius doesn't comment on the plural pronoun, but he keeps in mind the implication of Riddle's words in case of future need.

Riddle stays in the Manor to hear the book read the ritual for the soul transfer. It's simple enough, requiring only a strong connection between the two host bodies, which won't be a problem at all, Riddle thinks. He's eager to have it done. He's already impatient with how slowly Harry's body is recovering; now he has the ritual in front of him, he's even more so.


	104. Chapter 104

Wednesday finds Hermione Apparating Tyler and the Assistant to Nottingham and promising to be back in an hour. The Assistant's scars are hidden with a Concealing Charm, his features transfigured to make him look different enough that he won't immediately remind anyone of either Harry or Snape, and he wears a thin scarf to hide his collar. They walk fifteen minutes from the Apparition point to the Swifts home and as they get closer the Assistant notices Tyler slowing his pace and looking more and more wary. When they're a hundred yards from the large, enclosed house that belongs to the Swifts, he stops completely and blurts out, "I should have told him I was a squib."

The Assistant turns to him, hands shoved in his pockets against the October cold, but says nothing.

"Shouldn't I?"

"I don't know," the Assistant says. "I don't know if it'd have been better to tell him before or when we see him. You have to decide that, Tyler. It's your life and he's your father."

"Supposedly."

"If I'm wrong, you can ask Severus for a non-lethal poison to dose me with."

"What's the point in dosing you with a non-lethal poison?"

"It'll make my life particularly unpleasant for some time. C'mon, let's get on with it."

Dylan Swift is a large man with a boxer's physique that isn't quite hidden by his expensive robes, but he greets them with a warm smile.

"Hello, Tyler, it's nice to see you again." Said as if there isn't the possibility that they're related, then he holds out a hand to the Assistant. "Good morning, Mr Prince."

"Just Tobias is fine," the Assistant responds, shaking the hand and returning the smile. Snape scowled when he heard the false name the Assistant planned to use when he went with Tyler under the guise of a temporary guardian.

"Alright then, Tobias; I'm Dylan. If you'll both come through to the living room—my wife's out at the moment; I felt this discussion needed to be between us only. Can I get you anything to drink?"

Tyler takes and orange juice and the Assistant a coffee and they settle on the living room sofas.

"So... shall we get right to it?" Dylan asks, looking at Tyler, who stares fixedly at his glass. The Assistant, sat next to him, sips at coffee and half wishes he'd asked for something else; the scent of coffee and orange together reminds him of Yaxley and while half of him enjoys it, it's distracting and not entirely pleasant. A vial of clear potion sits patiently on the glass coffee table in front of the three of them. Dylan reaches for it. "I assume you brought your own for—"

"I'm a squib."

A silence falls over the room. The Assistant lowers his coffee. Dylan draws his hand away from the potion, brow furrowed.

"I'm sorry?"

Tyler lifts his gaze, meeting Dylan's eyes. "I'm a squib," he says again, and although his voice is steady, his hands grip his glass tightly. "I was fed on repeatedly by a vampire and now I've lost my magic. I... if you are my father and that would make you hate me, then I don't want to do the potion and we'll just leave now."

"I see," Dylan says slowly. "Might I ask about the vampire? I understand they're very possessive of people they take—are you in danger from it?"

Tyler shakes his head. "She's dead now."

"That's good to hear, and I'm sorry that you've, ah... well. That that happened to you. But if you are my son, it won't be an issue."

The Assistant can practically smell the relief coming from Tyler.

The Assistant takes a small vial from his pocket that contains the same clear potion as Dylan's and hands it to Tyler. Dylan produces two small flip knives from his pocket and hands one to Tyler before using the other to prick his own thumb. He holds the digit over his own Paternity Potion, letting several drops of blood drip into the liquid, where it coils and drifts. Tyler does the same with his then they swap vials and add their blood to each others before giving them a slight shake. Immediately the red in both potions dissolve, spreading to turn the entire potion to the consistency and colour of blood.

"Well," Dylan says, setting his vial down on the coffee table. "Hello, son."

* * *

Snape watches from an armchair as Harry lies across the sofa with his head in Draco's lap, face pressed to the other boy's stomach and hand clenched in his robes as he shakes, all while Draco combs his fingers through Harry's hair and murmurs soothing words. Snape has to admire Draco for it; he's certain there are very few who would stick around after realising just how badly traumatised their lover is. Certainly he doubts there are any other seventeen year olds that would sacrifice their education and the security of living at Hogwarts as pureblood child, to instead risk his life living with known traitors to help someone that will never get over the torture they've been through.

They're still like that when Hermione leaves again to pick up Tyler and the Assistant.

"So?" Draco asks the moment they're back. "Is he your father?"

Tyler nods, dropping into the armchair. Aurora streaks over and climbs into his lap and he pets her.

"Are you going to move in with him?"

"He needs to tell his wife and his other children, but he said he's willing to take me in. I told him I'm living in a home for squibs for now."

"You've got siblings?" Hermione asks.

"A half-sister and a step-brother."

"Are you pleased?"

Tyler shrugs. "I guess. I still need to process it."

* * *

Hermione's woken little after midnight on Friday night by a hand on her mouth and she snaps her eyes open to find the Assistant bent over her. He presses a finger to his own lips when she looks at him and draws his hand away when she nods her understanding.

"What's wrong?" she asks in a whisper, sitting up when he draws back slightly. "Are we in danger?"

"Sort of. I need you to do something for me," he replies quietly.

"What?"

"Wipe my memory and Apparate me to London."

"What? I thought we were in danger. Are we being attacked?" she demands, reaching under her pillow for her wand, only to find it gone. She glances back at the Assistant and notices it in his hand; in his other is an envelope.

"Assistant, what's going on?"

"You remember that Master I mentioned? I'm going back to him. He needs me."

"What do you mean? Has he contacted you? Does he know where we are?"

He taps his chest. "I'm a Bound in Slavery; I know when he needs me, but if I go back to him as I am, he will know where we are because he can make me tell him, at least the general location even if not the exact address, and he can make me reveal Harry's freedom and the Dark Lord's imprisonment. Wipe my memory and dump me in London, and the rest of you will be safe."

Hermione shakes her head. "We'll be safer if you stay here."

He smiles wanly. "No, you won't. My Master needs me, Hermione, which means I _will_ find a way to get back to him and that puts all of you in danger because I won't let anyone stand in my way."

"Are you threatening me? You can't even do magic!" she reminds him angrily, trying not to show the tingle of fear she feels anyway.

"I have a gun tucked in the back of my jeans and I can snap your wand before you get it back. I don't want to hurt you, Hermione; I don't even want to threaten you."

"You already are."

He shakes his head. "I'm just telling you how things are. If I was threatening you, the gun would be in my hand. Now there's a motorbike sat in front of this house. If you don't wipe my memory and Apparate me to London, I'm going to get on it and fly to London, and when I'm there my Master will likely ask where I've been and what I've been doing for the past six weeks, and while I can't tell him about this house, I can tell him Lucius betrayed the Dark Lord and that Harry is no longer imprisoned. Then we'll all be in trouble. So just do me a favour and do as I ask. Please."

"I'll need my wand to do the memory charm."

He doesn't hand it over, but does hold up the envelope, which she notices has her name on it. "It's highly possible I won't see you lot again before Harry kills the Dark Lord. This contains an extremely important piece of information that you have to read before Harry does it, but _after_ he destroys the Horcruxes."

Hermione frowns, glancing between his face and the envelope. "Is there something else about him that makes him hard to kill?"

"Sort of. I can't tell you now, but what's in here is vital to killing the Dark Lord, Hermione. I'm sorry for putting it on you, but it's information that Harry has to know."

"Harry? Why not just tell him then?"

He shakes he head. "No, he can't know until the Horcruxes are destroyed, and you won't want to know until then. Promise me you won't open it until they're destroyed."

"I promise."

He hands it over then gives her the wand as well, and the moment he does she silently casts a Stunning Spell and he slumps over her bed. She looks at the envelope, biting her lip, but tucks it into the bag she keeps by her bed then hurries out the room and down to Harry's, where she hesitates briefly before waking up Snape. He snaps his eyes open the moment her hand touches his shoulder and she jumps. He scowls at her, sitting up.

"What are you doing, Granger?" he asks softly, glancing towards Harry and Draco to make sure they're alright.

"It's the Assistant, sir. You need to come see him."

He doesn't question her, just takes his wand from under his pillow and follows her to the master bedroom, and she explains what happened.

"What should we do?"

"Exactly as he asks," Snape answers.

"What? But, sir, even if we wipe his memory we can't send him back. This Master of his hurts him. He carved those runes into him."

"I'm aware of that, Granger, but as he told you, as long as we try to hold him he's a danger to us. Even if we locked him up we would have to feed him and allow him the use of a bathroom, and even unarmed he is dangerous. Moreover, the magical Bond between them could allow Yaxley to find him and while the spells will keep him out, Yaxley will ask questions about why the Assistant is here and the last thing we need is the attention of the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. The Assistant's survived with Yaxley until now; he will survive another six months. Now be quiet; I need to concentrate to not erase his entire memory. Not that it would be a great loss," he adds in a murmur.

* * *

The Assistant wakes up on the floor of the abandoned house in London and knows instantly what wakes him. There's a tight tugging in his chest, urging him to get up and follow it back to Yaxley. He groans, rolling over and pushing himself to his feet as he looks around. There's no sign of Melissa, his fellow squatter, but he's not sure what time it is. It's dark out and he hopes she's just out working and is safe.

He scowls as he realises his bag is missing, but shrugs it off given the commonality of thieves; he is irritated to find his gun gone as well, though he doubts Yaxley would let him keep it anyway. He might actually get new, clean clothes when he goes back though, which would be nice. He is curious to find that the clothes he's currently wearing are cleaner than he remembers them being and there's a faint smell of unnatural cleanliness to them that betrays the use of a Cleaning Charm. He has no idea why they would smell like that given that, as he recalls, he spent the last fortnight kicking his drug habit, but he doesn't linger on it. He has somewhere to be.

* * *

"What took you so long?"

The Assistant scowls, stepping into Yaxley's flat. "How about the fact that you stole my magic so I had to steal some money, take the underground, and—" He breaks off, sniffing. "Why does it reek of blood and decay in here?"

In answer Yaxley heads for the bedroom. The Assistant follows, gut twisting unpleasantly as the scent grows worse when they move rooms, and he has to cover his mouth and nose with his hand when Yaxley slides open the cupboard door, revealing the cage in which the Assistant spent most of his summer. Now, however, it holds the dead body of a teenage boy—the same one, the Assistant thinks, that was on the sofa the day Yaxley threw him out. He must have been dead for several hours as his skin is purpled, with darker stains in his lower left torso where the blood has pooled inside the body. There are vicious wounds all across his back, arms, and legs that the Assistant instantly recognises as the result of an over-powered Whipping Hex—one of Yaxley's favourites.

He turns abruptly and stalks back to the living room, the smell of decomposition too strong for his werewolf senses to handle. Yaxley follows and the Assistant lowers his hand only when the bedroom door is shut.

"Get a little too enthusiastic, did we?" the Assistant asks, aiming for disgusted but only managing to sound nauseous.

"I didn't mean to kill him," Yaxley says defensively. "But he was going to ruin me. When he came to me, he told me he was Adrian Waltham's squib son and Adrian had thrown him out. He begged me to take him in, to give him food and a roof over his head and offered himself as payment, but it turns out Adrian put him up to it with the intention of having young Everest then publicly accuse me of kidnapping and rape."

"Why would he do that?"

"To oust me from my job. Even in the current climate a scandal like that could destroy me and Adrian would dearly like to take my place. I will not have my reputation sullied like that."

The Assistant's lip curls. "You deserve it. You _are_ a rapist."

Yaxley's wand is out in a flash and the Assistant flinches even before the Whipping Hex lashes across his chest. He staggers and falls then grunts as Yaxley lunges at him, knocking him fully to the floor and grabbing his hair to jerk his head back, shoving his wand under his chin. "I have told you before not to call me that. I did not rape that boy. He wanted it. He came onto me, he seduced me, he _begged_ me to take him off the streets. He _offered_ his body in exchange for food and a roof over his head."

"You're still a rapist. You've raped Harry Evans, you've raped me, and I know you've raped other boys before we met. It's what you are."

" _Crucio!_ "

The Assistant screams, body jerking uncontrollably under Yaxley, who doesn't get up, holding the curse on him for a full minute before finally letting up.

"I am _not_ a rapist and don't you dare say I raped you. I got you off every time."

"Didn't mean I wanted it."

"You wouldn't have got off if you didn't. Stop trying to make yourself a victim. You came onto me first, you belong to me, and if you really didn't want it, you'd have fought, even when I use your Trigger. I know you're an expert on loopholes and getting around your orders; if you didn't want to do something, I couldn't have made you."

The Assistant shakes his head incredulously. "You're a fucking idiot."

Yaxley smacks him hard enough to split his lip, but then grabs his face in both hands and kisses him hard. The Assistant groans, grabs Yaxley's robes and makes a weak effort to shove him off before giving in and pulling him closer, opening his mouth to Yaxley's tongue and jerking his hips up. He doesn't know his own emotions and desires from those made by the Bond anymore, doesn't know if he really wants it or not, but he knows Yaxley's mouth is warm and inviting and the feel of his erection against the Assistant's hip makes him want to get rid of both their clothes and let Yaxley fuck him until he screams, so he stops worrying about the details of consent, tries not to think about the dead boy in the other room, and just worries about getting their clothes off.

Not long later, the Assistant moans unhappily as Yaxley pushes himself up and off him, not wanting to lose the contact, and reaches towards him only for Yaxley to slap his hand away.

"Stay there."

Pouting, the Assistant watches the man get to his feet and head for the kitchen. The sex was short and rough, but it still felt like coming home and he wants more, wants to spend hours as the sole focus of his Master's attention. He's tired of fighting, tired of struggling to retain himself and convince himself he could be free and in charge of himself, and finally just given in to accepting Yaxley, no matter what pains or pleasures he brings. He forgot the relief that comes from finally giving into that, to accept his position as a Slave and subject to his Master's whims, forgot how much _easier_ it is.

He tenses when Yaxley returns from the kitchen, a knife in his hand that, as he gets closer, the Assistant realises is made of silver. Yaxley bends to scoop up his discarded wand and flicks it at the Assistant, who feels his body go stiff, muscles refusing to obey him and leaving him helpless as Yaxley straddles his hips, lowers the knife to the rune carved into the centre of his chest, and cuts through it. The Assistant can't even scream from the sharp, burning pain, but the spell doesn't stop the whimpers or the sting of tears in his eyes, and the agony makes him remember why he fought against his Master in the first place, reminds him why he despises the Bond he's carried his entire life, and makes him want to fight again.

Yaxley doesn't stop and free him until he's cut three slashes through each rune, negating their power and leaving the Assistant bleeding and sobbing, renewed hatred burning in his veins. He trembles with agony and fear, but when Yaxley's hand strokes through his hair, he whimpers, sighs, and turns his head into it.

And even though his magic is his to control again, swirling under his skin like it hasn't in what feels like eternity, he doesn't use it, because his old orders still stand and he can't wield a single spark of magic until his Master permits him.

"Heal your injuries to scars and clean off the blood."

He does so, though it does little for the pain. Yaxley goes to the bathroom and returns with a vial of blue potion that he hands over and which the Assistant drinks gratefully, feeling the pain ease from his body.

"Presumably you now expect me to do something about the boy."

"I already have a plan in mind," Yaxley confirms, but he leaves to the bedroom and returns wearing a clean robe and carrying another that he tosses at the Assistant, who takes the implicit order and dresses. Only then does Yaxley speak again.

"You will dispose of the body, somewhere it will be found in the next few days, then go to Adrian Waltham and make him believe he's the one who raped and killed Everest."

"No!"

"You will tell no one of this plan and you won't let yourself be caught or discovered enacting it. No one must be able to discover the truth. You will not delay in obeying these orders and when you're done, you will return to this flat immediately and remain here, and you will erase all evidence of Everest from this flat."

"You're going to ruin an innocent man's life," the Assistant growls, hands clenched furiously at his sides, "and make him believe he raped and killed his own child. I will not be party to that."

"You'll do as I order you to, Harry."

And he will. He hates it, but he will, because his Trigger is somewhere in those words and he has no choice but to do what Yaxley tells him to.


	105. Chapter 105

"Severus, you're certain the Assistant won't bring Yaxley and the other Death Eaters down on us?"

"I memory charmed him myself, Narcissa. He believes he spent the last two weeks in London, kicking his drug habit."

Narcissa nods, but still looks worried, sat at the dining room table of Black Stag House, Lucius opposite her. It's Saturday morning and Draco went to warn his parents of the Assistant's leaving as soon as he woke and Snape told him about it.

"I can pay Preston a visit and find out if he knows anything," Lucius suggests.

"I thought you were forbidden to leave the Manor," Snape remarks and Lucius looks at him.

"And how would you know that, Severus?"

Snape doesn't answer, but Lucius' mouth tightens. "Merrick Mulciber. I did wonder if that was you. But the Dark Lord is hardly going to know if I disobey him, is he?"

"Yaxley will," Narcissa points out. "Even if he knows nothing right now, visiting him will draw suspicion."

* * *

Riddle turns up early at Malfoy Manor that night and speaks before Lucius even sits down.

"Do you believe the Assistant to be a danger to us?"

"To you and me in our scheming, or to all of us working to hide the Dark Lord's imprisonment?"

"Both."

Lucius sits and lights the fire before he replies, dousing the Lumos on his wand as the flames light the room that Riddle hasn't bothered to.

"Perhaps. Severus is skilled in mental manipulation, but there's always room for error."

"I'm unconcerned about his memories; what Snape's charm may have missed I have taken care of, but I am concerned about the potential return of the Assistant's magic. If I wanted him capable of using it, I'd have let Harry alter his rune scars two weeks ago."

"Let him? I thought he believed you a hallucination."

"An influential one, especially since my taking control of his body has killed the hallucination. I make only brief contact with him when he's... awake, so to speak. He's terribly distraught that I've left, but far more amiable to obeying any suggestions I give. If the Assistant is capable of using magic and under his Master's thumb again then he can be used against us should his Master discover our situation, and while he's admitted that I wield far greater power than him, he is much more practised with his own power. He could overwhelm me."

Lucius can't help but marvel silently at the outright, if reluctant, admission of weakness. The Voldemort he knows would never have admitted to such a weakness. It makes him wonder once again if Harry is tricking him, or whether Riddle was less mad and paranoid before splitting his soul, or whether his time sharing a body and mind with Harry Evans has simply influenced him.

"The Assistant is forbidden from entering the Manor," he says in response to Riddle's concerns. "The Dark Lord deemed him far too dangerous to risk putting him near you in case he discovered a way to twist his orders from Preston and release you."

"That keeps him from discovering my older self; it doesn't keep his Master from discovering him, and if that were to happen, how likely is it that his Master will take the initiative to use the Assistant to try and free my older self, or to turn the Assistant on us?"

"Possible," Lucius admits slowly. "I don't believe even the Assistant can break a Magic Lock, though, but we could hex the cellar door to curse anyone that goes through it, I suppose."

"A wise suggestion," Riddle says approvingly. There's a brief pause, and then his mouth curls into a smirk. "I've done it myself; if anyone other than Narcissa's house elf tries to enter, they're in for an unpleasant surprise."

* * *

Yaxley returns to his flat on Monday after work to find the Assistant slouched on the sofa with a knife, his face set into the same unhappy scowl it's been in since he returned from altering the memories of Adrian Waltham.

"You can't kill yourself. I forbade it."

The Assistant doesn't look over and throws the knife at the fireplace, which it hits handle first and drops to the floor with a clatter. "Suicide is even more pointless for me than for anyone else. It won't undo what I've done, and won't even give me the satisfaction of escaping my guilt. I can't die."

"It would take you from me, as you proclaimed to desire so badly last night."

The Assistant kicks the coffee table, turning it over to send the morning's newspaper scattering to the floor and breaking the empty coffee mug Yaxley left on it earlier. The paper show the headline proclaiming the discovery of Everest Waltham's body.

"Clean that up before I curse you," Yaxley snaps.

"You think I care if you curse me?" the Assistant replies even as he fixes the mess.

"You are even more petulant that before I sent you away," Yaxley says irritably, moving over to stand before him. "I have given you your magic back and you are in your Master's presence. What more do you want?"

"I want to have not just ruined a man's life. I want this timeline to end. I want you to treat me with kindness. I want some dope. I want—"

"Shut up."

The Assistant snaps his mouth closed. Yaxley sits beside him, settling himself to sit at a slight angle at the end of the sofa, then tugs at the arm of the Assistant's robe. The Assistant flops down, settling himself to lie on Yaxley's lap, and sighs softly when Yaxley's fingers start to comb through his hair.

"What's dope?"

"Slang term for heroin. Muggle drug."

"You've been using Muggle drugs?"

"I didn't have access to potions. You left me a squib; Muggles were my only option."

Yaxley's lip curls at the thought, but he doesn't comment on it. "I will find you something to take. Perhaps drugs will make you less unpleasant to deal with."

"I can almost guarantee it," the Assistant agrees. "Particularly if the drug in question is Strawberry Night."

"You're familiar with illicit potions?"

"I'm familiar with lots of things; been around awhile, remember? Picked up a drug habit more than a few times throughout my existence."

"How will this Strawberry Night affect you?"

"It's a dreaming potion; it'll put me to sleep for eight hours and give me the most pleasant dreams I've ever had and leaves the user feeling happy when they wake. I can guarantee you that after a few nights of that, I'll be perfectly amicable. It's also fairly cheap."

"I'll consider it. Until then, you can work on making yourself naturally more amicable. I have no patience to deal with childish petulance."

* * *

Tyler gets a letter from Dylan saying he's told his wife about him and she isn't particularly pleased—she doesn't mind that he has an illegitimate child from before they married, she just minds that he wants to take Tyler in when Tyler's a squib. Tyler always knew Mrs Swift had some pureblood ideals—it's why she and Cid's dad broke up—but it wasn't so strong that she ever disapproved of Tyler as a half-blood. Apparently it is enough to disapprove of him as a squib. Dylan says that they're still discussing the matter and that they will discuss it with Cid and Layla over the Christmas holidays, but he doesn't mention what will happen if Mrs Swift refuses to be swayed.

He sets the letter down with a sigh and picks up Aurora, stroking her fur and listening to her purr as he thinks. He still struggles to comprehend the fact that Dylan Swift is his father, that Cid and Layla are his step- and half-siblings respectively. He isn't really sure how he feels about it all. It's nice to finally know who his real father is, and good to know that he's a pleasant man who genuinely didn't seem to know he had a son, but beyond that... he supposes it's nice that Dylan seems willing to take him in, squib status and all, but Tyler isn't sure that Dylan will stick with that if Mrs Swift keeps saying no. She's his wife, after all. They've been married fifteen years; he's only known Tyler as his son for a few days, they spoke as father and son for less than an hour, and met only a couple of times before that when Tyler visited Cid during the holidays. Dylan certainly has no reason to put Tyler above his wife.

He wonders how Cid and Layla will react to the news. He kind of likes the thought of having Cid for a brother; they've been friends for five years so he thinks it won't be that much of a change. And he pointedly ignores the fact that he has, just once or twice, thought about making out with Cid. At least he hasn't thought about it with Layla... mostly because he was genuinely worried that Cid could somehow find out and hex the crap out of him for thinking that about his beloved sister.

He thinks Cid will probably like the idea as well, but he's not so sure how Layla will react. She seems to like him well enough as her brother's best friend, but he knows she adores her father and he thinks she might not like having to share him with someone else.

* * *

Snape thinks it's ridiculous that he should be content to stand in the back door and watch his son lie in the overgrown grass of the back garden, but for the first time since he got Harry back the boy doesn't look afraid or depressed. Snape tells him he'll get a cold if he stays out there, but Harry tells him in a quiet but firm voice that he doesn't care, though does provide the reassurance that he keeps himself warm with magic. Snape takes his word for it; he doubts the jeans and jumper are providing him much warmth against the cold and light rain, but Harry isn't shivering.

He's been out there for over an hour. At first he simply stands barefoot in the grass just outside the door, clinging to Snape's hand as hard as his weak grip allows and Snape thinks he might actually start hyperventilating, but then he lets go, shuffles forwards, gets to his knees and buries his hands in the grass. He kneels for a while, fingering blades of grass, picking up small stones and rolling them in his hands, digging his fingers into the mud, and when it starts raining he shivers once then promptly lies down, rolls onto his back, and stays there.

"What's on my hand?"

There's an undertone of fear in Harry's voice, like he knows he's got no reason to be afraid and is trying to hide the fact that he is anyway, but it seeps through in the four words and the shaking hand he holds up for Snape to see. Snape scowls at having to step out of the shelter of the kitchen, but he moves closer so he can bend and inspect the black thing creeping along the back of Harry's hand.

"A spider."

"Okay," Harry says and puts his hand back down, letting the critter continue along its path.

"Are you going to come inside yet? You're soaked."

"I like it," Harry replies. "It feels good."

A bead of water sneaks under Snape's collar and down his back and he shivers, thinking there's nothing pleasant about being outside in the rain, but he says nothing. As Harry's strength slowly returns, he takes to touching things as often as possible and Snape knows he's making up for his lack of sight by indulging his other senses. He spends hours petting Aurora and although he still flinches and draws away from anyone touching him unexpectedly, he initiates contact occasionally and asks to touch the face of everyone in the house.

"So I can remember what you look like," he answered Hermione when she asked why. "I don't want to forget what you look like."

Snape gets the impression this fear is particularly strong with Draco, whose face Harry feels every night. Draco doesn't seem to mind; if anything, Snape has a feeling he wants Harry to do it as often as possible and thinks that perhaps Draco doesn't want Harry to forget what he looks like either.

* * *

The Assistant's doing Sudoku puzzles when Yaxley returns home late from work Wednesday night. It's almost ten o'clock, but the Assistant doesn't bother to comment on it. Yaxley comes straight to him, dropping that evening's _Daily Prophet_ in his lap.

"This is not what I wanted," he says, pulling off his travelling cloak. Putting his Sudoku aside, the Assistant picks up the paper, unfolding it to read the headline.

_ADRIAN WALTHAM SUICIDE AFTER MURDER CONFESSION_

"Huh," the Assistant says, skimming the accompanying article. "Well it's hardly surprising. You made the man think he raped and murdered his son. It's no wonder he killed himself."

"I wanted him destroyed."

"I'd say he's pretty destroyed," the Assistant retorts, putting the paper aside. "He's dead and his reputation's in ruins. More importantly, you're in the clear. You haven't really got anything to complain about, not to mention it saves you the hassle of a trial and all the paperwork that goes with arrests and trials and imprisonments."

Yaxley scowls at him, but doesn't comment. He reaches into his pocket and draws a short test tube of dark pink potion. The Assistant looks at it, swallowing thickly, then lifts his eyes to Yaxley's.

"That's Strawberry Night."

He knows it is; he's intimately familiar with the potion that killed his father, has studied it extensively, which means he knows the potion is supposed to be bright pink, not dark, a fact that he doesn't point out. The dark will put him to sleep permanently without an antidote, but he has no objections to that.

Yaxley sets it on the coffee table, teasingly in sight but pointedly not to be touched, and draws a second test tube from his pocket. The Assistant stiffens as he does, fearful that Yaxley knows he has the wrong version of Strawberry Night and has the antidote that goes with it, but the second potion is pale green.

"What's that?"

"Your ability to make yourself look like a teenager is useful, but doesn't quite satisfy me. I want you to be the real thing and I was told this will make you an actual teenager again."

The Assistant sits up straighter. "An Age Regression Draught?"

"I think that's what it was called, yes. Potions were never my forte, but the dealer assured me of its results. Take this, then you may use the Strawberry Night."

The Assistant looks at it for a moment then says, "Make me."

Anger flits across Yaxley's face. "Drink this potion, now, Harry," he orders, but his expression falters when the Assistant grins and takes the vial, uncorking it and tossing it back.

"Did the dealer also mention that this potion is poisonous?" he asks idly before it starts to take effect.

* * *

Snape's in the kitchen, wondering if the amount of vodka he has left will get him drunk and whether anyone would notice, when he hears the scream. He's already had three shots, and he reaches for another at the noise, idly wondering if he should feel bad about forgetting the Silencing Charm but deciding he can't be bothered. He's heard the scream more times than he cares to count over the past two and a half weeks and he knows Harry will accept no comfort from him after his nightmare, so he needn't bother going to him.

But this time the scream is followed shortly after by a heavy thud and Snape snatches his hand from the bottle he reached for, hurrying upstairs to Harry's room, pushing the door open and murmuring a spell to light the room. Harry's still in bed, sat up, gulping down breaths, his hand thrown out in front of him, and Draco—

Snape inhales sharply and rushes over to where the boy is crumpled on the floor, blond hair turning steadily red at the back of his skull. The noise makes Harry cringe and ask fearfully, "Who's there?"

"Just me," Snape reassures him, crouching and carefully checking Draco. He moans weakly, blinking slowly as unconscious threatens him, and he whimpers slightly when Snape probes his fingers against the back of his head.

"Dad? What's going on? Where's Draco? I need Draco, I need—"

"Harry, calm down. Draco will be with you in a moment. Draco, can you hear me?"

Draco moans. Harry tosses his bed covers aside. "What's happened? What's wrong with him? Draco!"

"Harry?" Draco murmurs, voice slurred. "'S okay. 'S okay, imma... imma prote..." he trails off, eyes drifting shut.

"Draco?" There's pure fear in Harry's voice now, even more so than moments before and he scrambles out of bed so fast he stumbles and falls, but crawls in the direction of Snape and Draco, flinching when he bumps into Snape then reaching out blindly until his hand touches Draco's arm and he grips it, shaking. "Draco?"

Snape grabs Harry's shoulders, ignoring the resultant cringe as he pushes Harry up to face him. "Harry, I need you to listen very carefully, alright? I need you to make yourself invisible to everyone but Narcissa and Apparate to Malfoy Manor. Go directly to the master bedroom and wake her if she's asleep. You need to tell her that Draco's hurt his head—" Harry cries out "—and she needs to come here immediately to inspect it."

"I can fix—"

"No!" Snape says harshly, and feels a spike of guilt when Harry flinches violently. "Harry, he's unconscious and bleeding badly. You can't heal him until we know what damage might have been done to his mind. He needs a proper healer. Get Narcissa now."

Harry goes nowhere. Snape resists the urge to shake him and shout the command. He doesn't want to leave Draco alone with Harry, but someone needs to fetch Narcissa, and the only other option is—

He's halfway to his feet when there's a crack of Apparition and a confused looking Narcissa appears, wearing only a dressing gown over her night robe.

"Severus?" she asks. "What—Draco!"

He moves out the way to let her crouch by Draco, pulling Harry away so Narcissa can get to her son.

"What happened?" she demands as she carefully inspects Draco's head.

"I think he was thrown into the wall," Snape tells her.

"By whom?"

"It was me," Harry moans unhappily. "It was me, but I didn't mean to, I swear, I would never hurt Draco on purpose. Is he okay? Dad said—"

"Harry, be quiet," Snape interrupts. "Let her work."

"I didn't mean to," he whispers, sounding on the brink of tears.

Snape's voice softens. "I know. You never mean to."

It's the wrong thing to say. Harry whines unhappily, curling in on himself, bending over and wrapping both arms around himself, trembling and shaking his head. He doesn't say anything and when Snape tries to touch him he jerks away.

Draco has a mild concussion but is otherwise fine. Narcissa heals the head injury and a quick spell cleans the blood from his hair, but she insists on staying with them just to be sure Draco's alright.

"How did you know to come?" Snape asks as he lends her a cloak to put over her nightgown.

"I... don't know," she admits with a frown.

"I did it," Harry tells them. "I can make people do things, like a compulsion."

"Like the Imperius," Narcissa says, voice suddenly cold to hide the spark of fear she feels at the fact that a blind, tortured teenager is capable of making her do things beyond her control and do it from eighty miles away. She's satisfied to see Harry's face turn pale under the scars.

"N-n-no," he stutters. "That's not—I don't—it was only for Draco! Dad said I needed to get you, but I didn't want to go back to that house, so I just—I wouldn't make anyone do something _bad_. I wouldn't do that. I'm not a... not a..." But he can't finish it, because he knows whatever he says will be a lie. He may never have used the Imperius on someone, but he's still done bad things and if he was told to then he would have used it. Instead he ducks his head, turning his face away and muttering, "I'm sorry."

"Apology accepted," Narcissa says, satisfied with the remorse he's showing. "I understand your reasons for doing so, but ask that you don't do it again."

He promises he won't and then apologises repeatedly to Draco until the other boy presses his hand over his mouth to quiet him—which only results in Harry jerking away, looking fearful, and then it's Draco's turn to apologise. Snape rolls his eyes and sighs; Narcissa tuts.

"Both of you stop apologising," Snape tells them. He goes to Harry's trunk and takes from it Volume 4 of _The Complete Encyclopaedia of British Wizarding History_ , which he then hands to Draco.

"Why are you giving me this?" he asks, confused.

"You need to stay awake, he needs calming down, and if I'm lucky the sheer boredom of listening to someone recite history might send me to sleep."

"History's not boring," Harry mutters as Snape sits himself on his bed, back to the wall and legs stretched out in front of him. He closes his eyes as the others move around, Draco and Harry getting onto Harry's bed and making themselves comfortable while Narcissa settles on Draco's bed, and then Draco opens the book and begins reading.


	106. Chapter 106

Yaxley smiles as he looks at the young teen now sat on his sofa. The potion has worked perfectly—better than he could have hoped. It hasn't just made the Assistant younger, but physically de-aged him to his younger self, including eliminating the scars that Yaxley so carefully carved into him, as well as every other scar the Assistant has gained over the last few years, making him far more attractive. He's not concerned by the Assistant's last words, either, because the dealer _had_ informed him that the potion was poisonous—but takes six weeks to kill and he has an antidote that is effective as long as it's administered within thirty-five days of ingesting the Age Regression Draught.

* * *

The Assistant leaps to his feet, hands raised and ready to use magic as he stares at the middle-aged man in front of him, who's raking his gaze over the Assistant in a way that makes him feel incredibly uncomfortable. He stands in a living room between a beige sofa and a wooden coffee table opposite a large fireplace, and he has no idea how he got there nor why he's wearing too big robes and shoes and a collar around his throat. Just minutes ago he was sat in the Hogwarts library unhappily working on his Arithmancy homework; his new elective class is proving harder than he expected, but all that flees his mind as he draws himself up and sets his face into a commanding expression.

"Who are you?" he asks, tone authoritative, just like Lucius is when he's talking to those beneath him. "How did I get here?"

The man looks surprised, then thoughtful. "You don't remember?"

"Tell me!" the Assistant demands.

"You belong here," the man replies, which isn't an answer to his question at all and yet—

"I do not," he says, but something in him shivers at the denial, like he doesn't quite believe it. "How did you get me out of Hogwarts?"

"Hogwarts?" he repeats with a frown. "You weren't at... oh," the man breaks off, and he chuckles. "Oh, that's... tell me, Harry, how old are you?"

The answer is out of him before he can stop it despite not wanting to answer this stranger's questions. "Thirteen."

"A perfect age," the man murmurs, running his gaze over the Assistant again in a way that makes the Assistant want to scrub himself clean.

"Tell me who you are," he commands.

"My name is Preston Yaxley," the man answers with a smile, "but you, Harry, only call me Master."

He does edge away then, because at the man's words something inside the Assistant shudders. He won't admit it, but he's scared and he hasn't been scared since he was seven. He doesn't _need_ to be scared; he's the most powerful wizard since Merlin. He's the adopted son of Lucius Malfoy. He has power, wealth, and intelligence. He's the Boy Who Lived and he is not going to be frightened by some jerk who kidnapped him.

Which is good reason to be scared, a little part of him says; someone has not only over-powered him, but done so in Hogwarts and taken him from the castle. Though he can take small comfort from that, at least. Someone will notice he's missing and report it.

On top of that, he can't use magic. He wants to, but it's like something won't let him, and that scares him more than anything.

"I'll have you tossed in Azkaban," he says as he edges towards the fireplace. He'll floo to the Manor, explain everything to Lucius, and everything will be fine. "When Lucius hears about this, he'll have your eyes from your head and get you locked in Azkaban for the rest of your miserable life."

The man, Yaxley, actually has the audacity to laugh. "Harry, I'm the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement; _I_ decide who gets chucked in Azkaban, not Lucius. Lucius doesn't care one bit for you."

"I don't care who you are. I'm Harry Snape, I'm the Boy Who Lived; Lucius Malfoy is my guardian and he will do whatever I ask."

"No, Harry, he won't. Stop moving towards the fireplace; you're not going anywhere."

His feet stop and he can't stop the little flicker of fear crossing his face; he didn't even see the man use his wand. He shoves it down and turns his expression angry. "How dare you use a compulsion on me! Let me go at once!"

"No," Yaxley says softly, moving towards him. "You belong here. I had plans for this evening and I will not allow this unexpected side effect from the potion to ruin it. If anything, I think it may actually make it better."

The Assistant steps towards the fireplace but the motion brings a sudden pain, like being hit with a brick at every point of his body all at once, making him gasp and stagger back away from the fireplace. He's really scared now. He's never heard of a compulsion that causes pain when fought.

"What have you done to me?" he asks as the pain fades.

Yaxley doesn't answer, approaching and lifting his hands to cup the Assistant's face, tilting it back to look up at him. The Assistant grabs his wrists, thinking to break his arms, but his magic still refuses to obey him just as much as his feet refuse to move. He glares at him, hiding his fear behind anger, and tries to pull the hands away.

"Let me go," he says and hates that his voice shakes and it comes out like he's begging rather than ordering. Harry Snape doesn't _beg_.

"Stop that," Yaxley murmurs, and the Assistant does, but his hands remain curled around his wrists. He tries not to shudder as Yaxley brushes his thumb across his lower lip. He's Harry Snape. He's an adopted Malfoy. He's strong and he won't be cowed by this pervert.

"Let go of me."

"Are you a virgin, Harry?"

He doesn't want to answer, he really, really doesn't, but he can't stop himself. "Yes."

Yaxley smiles. "Then allow me to introduce you to a world of delights. Don't fight me, just follow my lead, and I promise you that by the time we're done you'll be feeling wonderful."

He notices the tube of dark pink potion when Yaxley orders him to his knees. It sits innocuously on the coffee table and he recognises it instantly; he's done extensive research on the potion that killed his father, after all, and knows it well enough to recognise it instantly.

He doesn't even hesitate. This man may have done something to stop his magic, but he can still fight, and he's fast. He snatches the potion up, flicks the cork free, and surges to his feet, startling Yaxley and thrusting the tube between his lips, glad when Yaxley swallows instinctively at having sweet tasting liquid in his mouth rather than spitting it out.

"Undo what you did!" the Assistant demands as Yaxley staggers back and falls onto the sofa, blinking stupidly. "Make me able to use magic again!"

"Use... magic?" Yaxley repeats slowly. His eyelids droop and the Assistant knows he doesn't have long before the Strawberry Night sends him to sleep.

"Do it now! Make me able to use magic!"

"Harry..." Yaxley murmurs, eyes drifting shut. "Yes... use magic... Harry."

And he does, Disapparating without a moment's hesitation.

The Assistant goes straight to Malfoy Manor. He won't believe what the man said; Lucius is his guardian, his adopted father and Voldemort's most trusted, and he'll do whatever he can to help the Assistant.

But he reaches the drawing room and notices a newspaper and picks it up, reading the headline about a man who killed his son. But what really gets his attention is the date: _Wednesday, 5_ _th_ _November, 1997_.

He sets the paper down with a shaking hand. Either he's missing four years of memories, or some kind of time travel magic has happened that somehow took him four years into the future. It seems the more likely option; it would explain how he came from Hogwarts to Yaxley's apartment and why he still looks thirteen rather than seventeen, as he should be if he grew up and lost his memories. He can't even begin to imagine how Lucius is going to react to him turning up after four years missing.

* * *

Lucius has always been a light sleeper. The paranoid Slytherin part of him considers it an asset; the father part of him hates it. It took very little noise from Baby Draco to wake him and he was inevitably the one to get up in the night and rock him back to sleep; on the plus side, Narcissa graced him with several _extremely_ pleasant rewards for doing so. But that night he's grateful for it. He wakes the moment the door to his room opens and he knows instantly that it's not Narcissa creeping inside, though a part of him, a large part, really wishes it was despite her having made it perfectly clear she will never sleep with him again. Pretending he hasn't woken, he slips his hand under his pillow for his wand, curls his fingers around the wood and—

"Lucius, sir?"

He sits, casting a Blasting Hex as he goes, but the figure approaching the bed manages to erect a shield before it hits them and the spell frazzles out harmlessly.

"Lucius, it's me!"

Lucius has no idea who 'me' is. He casts a silent Body Bind Curse. That hits its mark and he hears arms and legs snap together then a body topple back and hit the floor with a thud, but even as he casting a Lighting Spell the intruder throws off his curse and scrambles to their feet.

"Lucius, it's Harry! Stop attacking me!"

Lucius keeps his wand held in front of him, pointed at the extremely familiar young teenager stood before him, hands held out defensively, bright green eyes staring at him imploringly. He knows immediately that it's not Harry Evans. Lucius remembers Evans at fourteen, the age he thinks this boy is, standing on platform nine and three-quarters and again when he visited the Manor that same summer. The first time he saw him he wondered how anyone could mistake the child for James Potter's son.

But the boy in front of him, while certainly similar in appearance to Evans, has two perfectly working green eyes, there are noticeable differences in their facial structure, and his hair is a few shades lighter and a touch shorter than Lucius remembers Evans' being. He stares at the boy, trying to figure him out, and then he remembers that Evans isn't the only Harry he knows.

"Assistant?"

The boy blinks, frowns. "What? Lucius... it's me. It's Harry. I know I've been missing—" He bends, picking up a newspaper that he must have dropped when Lucius cursed him. "I don't know what happened to me, but I found this paper and it says it's nineteen ninety-seven."

"Of course it's ninety-seven," Lucius sneers. "What year did you expect it to be?"

"Ninety-three," the boy answers. "That's when I went missing, isn't it? That's the last thing I remember—being at Hogwarts, November fifth, ninety-three, and then all of a sudden I was in some stranger's flat and I've no idea how I got there."

Lucius stares at him suspiciously. The boy's lying to him, he's almost certain of it, but if he is the Assistant then why? Unless of course...

"If this is another of your blasted pranks, Assistant, I swear to Merlin I will hand you to the Dark Lord himself. I am _not_ in the mood."

"You—what? Lucius, what are you talking about? Why do you keep calling me that?" Then sadness creeps across his face and his hands lower. Lucius' wand doesn't waver. "They got you. Whoever did this to me, they've... memory charmed you or something."

_Memory charmed..._ Lucius frowns, goes over everything the boy has said, and then finds himself freshly disgusted at the lengths Yaxley appears willing to go to have a teenage lover.

"I'm not the one who's been memory charmed," Lucius says, finally lowering his wand, though he keeps it ready just in case. He never really trusted the Assistant; he isn't about to now just because he's a teenager again.

"Then you remember me?" the boy asks hopefully. "Do you know what happened to me?"

"I've a good guess," Lucius answers, rising to his feet and moving over to his wardrobe to take out a robe. He slept in only his boxers and he pulls the robe right on, settling it in place then turning to the boy. "Stay here. I'll be back in a moment. Don't move, don't touch anything."

"Yes, sir."

He turns, stalks out the room and down the hall towards the master bedroom. He knocks hard, knowing Narcissa sleeps deeply, but there's no response. He knocks again, just in case, then pushes the door open, but the bed is empty. He frowns, then calls for Pippin.

"Where's Narcissa?"

"Pippin is not knowing, Mister Malfoy, sir," the elf answers. "She is not being anywhere in the house."

* * *

The Assistant's startled when Lucius bursts back into the guest room—and he has no idea why he's sleeping in a guest room, nor why the master bedroom, when he checked it, looks as though it's occupied solely by a woman—and grabs him by the front of his robes, wand mere millimetres from his face and his grey eyes burning angrily.

"What the fuck have you done to my wife?" he snarls.

"What? I haven't done anything to Narcissa," the Assistant professes honestly, now even more sure about his theory that Lucius has been memory charmed. "Sir, isn't she still in Azkaban? She's been there since Draco and I were nine, remember?"

"Narcissa's never set foot in that godforsaken place and if I have anything to do with it, she never will. Now tell me what the hell you've done to my wife before I show you exactly why I was the Dark Lord's most loyal Death Eater."

"I haven't done anything to her," the Assistant repeats firmly, finding that Lucius' anger is helping him to keep his own emotions in check. One of them has to if they're going to figure out what's going on and who cursed them. His next priority is finding Draco, he thinks; he needs to find out if someone's got to him too. "We should go to Hogwarts, sir," he says calmly. "We need to find Draco."

Lucius doesn't move. "No. We're going to Coleford and we're getting Evans to make one of his tracking arrow things and if it doesn't direct me straight my wife then you're going to wish you'd never been born, boy."

"Who's Evans?"

Instead of answering, Lucius grabs him by the arm hard enough to bruise and Disapparates.

* * *

"Severus!"

Harry jumps. Snape opens his eyes, frowning at the sound of Lucius' voice ringing through the house. Draco breaks off in mid-sentence to frown in the direction of the door; Narcissa does the same.

"What on earth is Lucius doing here?"

"Looking for me, apparently," Snape says, sighing and getting off the bed. "Are you coming?"

"I suppose," she agrees, standing as well.

"I'm coming too," Draco says.

"That's not necessary, Draco. Stay with Harry."

"SEVERUS! Get down here!"

"Impatient bastard," Snape mutters.

* * *

The Assistant stares at the man who comes down the stairs of the house Lucius Apparated him into and for a moment he thinks he might faint. He's older than the Assistant remembers, with shadows under his eyes and his mouth turned into a scowl, but he's painfully familiar and the Assistant's chest tightens at the sight of him. Then hot on the tail of shock and grief and loss is anger. This is the last straw. Bad enough that someone should curse him into the future, bad enough that he should end up in the home of a pervert, bad enough that his guardian has been cursed into forgetting him and thinking his wife is free, but for them to have the nerve to imitate his dad—that is too far.

Snape reaches the bottom of the stairs and screams, crumpling to the floor as pain rips through every inch of him. If he could think, he'd spare a thought for how easy it was to forget the sheer agony of the Cruciatus Curse.

Harry jumps out of bed at the sound of the scream, stumbling in his haste and so focused on his father that he doesn't even notice the hand Draco wraps around his arm to steady him. He's better on his feet now, but he still hasn't moved this fast since his release and he stumbles down the hall to the stairs, making a Wish for whoever's hurting Snape to fall unconscious as he goes. He hears a body thump to the floor and Snape's screams taper off.

"Dad!"

He can hear ragged breathing and grabs the banister, moving down the stairs with more speed than he has before. He stumbles and hands grab him, keeping him from falling, then Draco's voice says, "He's at the bottom of the stairs. He's alright."

"Dad?"

"I'm okay."

Harry might believe it if his voice wasn't so raspy. "What happened? Was it Lucius?"

"No," Snape replies and Harry hears him stand and hears Narcissa murmur, "Alright?"

"Then who? Is there someone else?" he asks, panic in his voice, fearful that his protective spells have failed somehow.

"What's going on?" Tyler's voice calls from the landing, and then Hermione from behind him saying, "I heard screaming."

"Narcissa, are you alright?"

Narcissa shoots Lucius a frown, hearing the honest worry in his voice that she doubts anyone who hadn't lived with him for twenty years would notice. "Yes, I'm fine."

"Why are you here?"

"Severus called for me. Draco was hurt."

Lucius' eyes flick up the stairs to where Draco stands holding Harry. "How?"

"It's nothing, Father. I'm fine."

"How were you hurt?" he demands.

"I banged my head. It's really fine, Father. Who attacked Snape?"

They haul the Assistant up onto the sofa and Lucius explains what happened and who he thinks it is.

"Why would Yaxley de-age him and wipe his memory?" Draco asks.

"I think he's been dosed with an Age Regression Draught," Snape says. "It's possible he thought he had a De-Aging Elixir; normally I'd say it unlikely a mix up like that could happen but given the current state of affairs and the trade in illicit potions right now, it's possible someone gave him an Age Regression Draught instead."

"What's the difference?" Lucius asks. "Are they easily mixed up?"

Snape snorts and opens his mouth to answer, only to get cut off by Hermione.

"Absolutely not. The Age Regression Draught is an illegal substance that's incredibly difficult to brew and causes the body _and_ mind to regress to a certain age. A De-Aging Elixir is perfectly legal, not hard to make, and only causes bodily de-aging. They're not even similar in appearance or smell and—"

"Granger, be quiet," Snape interrupts. She blinks at him.

"I'm not wrong. Am I?"

"No, but we don't need a lecture on de-aging potions." His gaze flicks back to the Assistant. "In any case, if some idiot goes to someone asking for a potion that de-ages a person they probably wouldn't know the difference. If Yaxley asked for something permanent, there's a strong chance he was given an Age Regression Draught and not told the details. Or was told the details and didn't care."

Harry Wishes for some wrist cuffs with magic suppression runes on to place on the Assistant then wakes him up. To no one's surprise, the Assistant immediately makes to stand only for Snape to point his wand at him.

"Sit. Down."

The Assistant's eyes narrows and he settles back, glaring at him but unable to fully hide that he's unnerved. His gaze flicks around the room, taking in the rest of the occupants, and when he sees Harry he can't help blurting, "Bloody Merlin! What the hell happened to you?"

"Never mind that," Snape replies. "It's your story we want to get straight."

The Assistant looks back at him, folds his arms over his chest, and sneers. "If you expect me to talk to you, then you'll take off that glamour. You've got no right making yourself look like that!"

"Is that why you tortured me?"

"Yes. And I'll do it again if you don't remove the glamour!"

"No, you won't," Harry says quietly. "You can't use magic with those cuffs on, and if you did hurt my dad I'd kill you."

"You couldn't kill an ant, you blind freak. I don't know who you people are," he says and his gaze settles on Lucius, stood by the fireplace, "but when Lucius finds out you're imitating him and his family, he'll have all of you thrown in Azkaban for the rest of your miserable lives!"

"If you expect us to explain ourselves, you will stop shouting," Snape says harshly. "If you don't, I will force you to be silent."

The Assistant scowls at him, crosses one leg over the other in an attempt to look relaxed and in control despite the arms still folded over his chest, and lifts his eyebrows into a 'well get on with it' expression.

"Lucius told us you thought it was nineteen ninety-three. Is this correct?"

"Yes. That's when I went missing."

"Then you're... thirteen?"

He nods.

"What's the last thing you recall before finding yourself in ninety-seven?"

"I thought you were going to explain yourselves, not play twenty questions."

"I am trying to figure out what's happened to you, idiot child. I have a theory but the more information I have from you, the more accurate my theory can be. So answer the question."

The Assistant huffs, annoyed, but answers. "I was at Hogwarts, in the library, studying. Then the next thing I know I'm standing in some stranger's flat. There were no lights, noise, or strange sensations to indicate a ritual or spell. He tried to attack me, I fought back, then went to Malfoy Manor."

Snape flicks his wand and the second armchair moves around to face the Assistant. Snape sits.

"You were not kidnapped and haven't travelled in time—not recently at least. What I'm about to tell you may seem incredulous, but I assure you it's the truth and not all of it is pleasant. But before I tell you anything, I need to know what you did to the man that tried to attack you. He may come after you and we need to know what possible danger he presents."

"He's not going anywhere."

"Did you stun him?"

"No, I dosed him with Strawberry Night."

Snape glances at his watch. "Then we have about eight hours until he wakes up."

"No, we don't."

"I invented that potion," Snape says coldly. "I know all of its effects."

"And I've researched it," the Assistant replies snobbishly. "The one I gave him was dark pink, not bright pink."

"Does that matter?" Tyler asks, earning a disdainful look from Snape. "What does Strawberry Night do anyway?"

"Did you pay attention in any of my classes, Mr Lyle? The colour of a potion is extremely telling. The common version of Strawberry Night is bright pink and will put the user to sleep for eight hours while inducing pleasant dreams. The darker version puts the user to sleep permanently without an antidote and has an eighty-four percent chance of causing nightmares. It at least means we have until someone realises Yaxley hasn't turned up to work and then however long it takes them to realise what's wrong with him before we have to worry about him."

"So are you going to tell me what in Merlin's name is going on then?" the Assistant asks.


	107. Chapter 107

_Time travel... failed ritual... time loop... different timelines... alternate versions of people... Animancupium... Age Regression Draught..._

The Assistant's head spins as he tries to process everything he's been told. He still sits on the sofa of a strange sitting room; he wants to go out, to walk as he figures everything out, but the man that isn't his dad tells him they're under heavy protections and have to stay in hiding. They leave him alone, at least. Lucius has gone back to the Manor, Tyler and Hermione have returned to bed, but Snape has gone into the kitchen with Narcissa and Draco. Only his supposed counterpart, Harry Evans, remains, but the Assistant doesn't mind. His shocking appearance helps distract from the turmoil of emotions he feels over the news he's received, and as Harry is blind he can't see if any of those emotions should show on the Assistant's face.

The Assistant clears his throat. "So. You're me?"

"Not really," Harry replies. His hands are rubbing at the arms of the chair, filling the room with the soft noise of fabric under hand. It grates on the Assistant's ears. "I'm just someone you could have been if you had the same life as me."

"Glad I didn't," the Assistant mutters. Harry hears but says nothing. He wishes he hadn't had his life either.

"Whose house is this?"

"Mine."

"You live here with your dad then?"

"No, with Sirius and James, but Sirius is dead now and James is the new Hogwarts headmaster. We all came here after Lucius broke me out."

"Hang on—who's James and what happened to Dumbledore? And are you talking about Sirius Black? My—your godfather? Didn't he die ages ago?"

"No, he didn't. This timeline is a lot different to yours..."

* * *

"You left him with the _Dursleys?!_ "

Snape looks at the irate boy in the kitchen doorway and narrows his gaze, curling his hands around his coffee mug as he stands leaning against the sideboard. "Yes, I did, and I will not be judged by you, boy. It is not your place."

"I am him! That could have been me!"

"It wasn't!" Snape snaps. "Your father took you in and raised you. Be grateful for it and don't presume to judge the actions of others. I am well aware of my sins; I will not have some spoilt brat presume to tell me my mistakes. What I did has nothing to do with you and the only person who has a right to judge me for it is Harry."

The Assistant turns to look at Harry, pointing a finger uselessly at Snape. "Surely you don't forgive him for leaving you there?"

"No," Harry replies calmly, and Snape's minutely glad that he answered so quickly because it means the tiny spark of hope that he might hear a yes doesn't get time to properly settle, "but I don't hate him for it anymore."

"Why not?" the Assistant demands angrily. "He left you with those filthy Muggles, let you get beat up and half blinded. How can you not hate him?"

"Because he's helped me and he's sorry. I know if he had the chance to do it again he'd do it different. A lot of people have hurt me and done things a lot worse than leave me with Muggles. I can't spare the energy to hate him when there are so many other people for me to hate, and I don't want to. He's my dad."

"Dad's don't leave their kids to get beat up."

Harry sighs wearily. "It was a long time ago. I don't want to talk about it anymore. I'm tired."

Draco leaves the kitchen to help him up and the Assistant turns away.

"I want to go back to the Manor."

Narcissa turns to the Assistant, eyebrows raised. In the sitting room, Draco pauses at the bottom of the stairs to listen. "I beg your pardon?"

"I want to go back to the Manor," he repeats with the tone of someone who doesn't expect to be denied. "It's my home, I want to go back."

"This is not your timeline, young man. Malfoy Manor is not your home."

The Assistant lifts his chin. "It's not up to you; Lucius gets to decide."

"Lucius decides nothing. I have had my home invaded enough over the last few months because of the Dark Lord. You are not at his command, therefore Lucius has absolutely no say in whether you get to stay in _my_ house."

"It's not _your_ house, it's—"

"Be quiet," Narcissa interrupts sharply. "Haven't you realised yet that this world is different to what you know? Lucius and I are divorced; Malfoy Manor belongs solely to me and you will not be staying there."

"Then where am I supposed to stay?"

"Here," Snape answers, "as you did for two weeks."

The Assistant scowls. "Where do I sleep?"

* * *

Harry is awake when Snape gets up the next morning, sat on the floor by Draco's bed, holding the blond boy's hand as he sleeps, but his head turns slightly when Snape sits up and stretches.

"Dad?"

"Yes?"

"When I first woke up here, the Assistant told me you were going to make a deal with Crowley. Is that true?"

"Yes."

"Why? What for?"

"For you. I went to ask him to take my soul instead of yours."

Harry's mouth drops in surprise. "You would do that? How did you know about it?"

"Black told me, but Crowley refused the exchange. He seems incredibly intent on claiming your soul."

"But the Assistant said you nearly sealed a deal with him."

"When he refused to trade your soul, I asked him to free you instead. Lucius must have done it at the same moment, because as you said, I was close to sealing the deal when you Apparated me to Cokeworth."

"But you didn't, did you? You didn't kiss him?"

"No. Had I, you would have been healed as well as saved." He pauses, guiltily grateful that Harry can't see him as he steels himself to say the next words. "I'm sorry I didn't get you out, Harry. I'm sorry for failing you again."

"You tried."

"Not hard enough."

"You're doing that self-sacrificing thing again. Don't make me blow something up."

"My apologies," Snape says dryly, but his heart lifts to hear Harry speaking so lightly.

"I meant it what I said last night," Harry adds, and the light humour fades back to seriousness. "About not hating you. I don't."

"I'm glad to hear it."

"Thanks for trying to break my deal, but I don't mind anymore."

"Don't mind what?" Snape asks with a frown.

"Dying. I'm not afraid anymore. After what happened, hell isn't so scary anymore."

"What about the Horcrux?"

"The Assistant said it won't help. He said Crowley will still get me." He inhales deeply and lets it out shakily. "I don't want to fight anymore. I'm just so tired and weak. I used to want to finish my NEWTs before I died, so I could say I accomplished _something_ , but now... now I just want to kill the Dark Lord and then stay at home and have some peace."

"That's..." Snape doesn't know what to say. His son is talking about his death and there's almost longing in his voice. How is he supposed to react to that?

"Do you know how people die when their time's up?" Harry asks and Snape's gut twists; there's something in Harry's voice that he doesn't like.

"Yes," he answers slowly. "The hellhounds..." He leaves it at that. They both know what the hellhounds do; he doesn't want to think about it in any detail.

"I don't want to die like that."

"I can't think that anyone would."

"Will you kill me?"

"What?"

"When my time comes, will you kill me instead?"

"You can't ask that of me," he says raspily, voice shaking.

"Why not?" Harry lets go of Draco's hand and gets to his feet, facing Snape properly. "The Killing Curse is meant to be painless. I've been through enough. Don't I deserve a painless death?"

"You're my son," Snape replies in a horrified whisper. "You can't ask me to _kill_ you."

"I'm going to die anyway. If the hellhounds get me, they'll tear me apart. They'll rip me to shreds. I don't want that. Just let me die painlessly; you could give me a poison. _Please_. I don't want any more pain. Just give me this."

Snape shakes his head, backing towards the door. "You can't ask that of me. I won't kill my son, not after failing you so many times before."

"If you don't, you'll fail me again."

Snape doesn't respond, just grabs the door handle and leaves the room, pulling the door shut behind him and hurrying across the hall into the bathroom. He strips, turns on the shower and steps under the spray, uncaring of the initial burst of cold water as he presses trembling hands to his face.

_"If you don't, you'll fail me again."_

But to kill his son! How could he? How could Harry ask that of him? No parent should be asked to kill their child.

No child should be asked to kill their parent, either, and Harry was told to do that. But he hadn't. He spared Snape when he had every right not to. He owes Harry a life debt... and Harry is asking him to repay it with murder. And some part of his mind tells him that the logic in Harry's request is sound. Were it anyone else, he would agree in an instant that a quick poison or the Killing Curse is a mercy when the alternative is to be mauled by the dogs of hell, but this is his _son_. Bad enough to know he can do nothing to stop him dying; how can he actively kill him?

* * *

Harry hears Draco sit up and feels eyes staring into the back of his head.

"Explain that whole conversation."

* * *

To say Narcissa's surprised when Draco turns up in the sitting room that morning would be an understatement, but her surprise quickly turns to worry when she sees the distressed expression on his face and she hurriedly gets to her feet.

"Draco, what's wrong?"

"He's dying," Draco says, and then he breaks down into sobs.

* * *

Snape doesn't even pretend he's not being a coward when he bypasses Harry's room after showering, heading downstairs without stopping to ask if Harry wants to come down for breakfast. He finds Tyler spooning food into Aurora's bowl and scolding the cat for getting underfoot and being impatient. Hermione sits at the table with a bowl of cereal and a wistful look in her eyes as she watches Aurora, but she greets Snape, who grumbles a reply as he goes straight for the kettle.

"I've got a question," Tyler says when he finishes with Aurora and sits at the table with his own breakfast of toast and boiled eggs. "If there are potions that de-age people, why is everyone dying? Why don't they just take that to live forever?"

"Age Regression Draughts are poisonous," Hermione answers before Snape can. "They send toxins into the blood stream that kill you within six weeks. You are going to make an antidote, aren't you?"

"No, Granger," Snape replies snarkily, "I thought I'd just let the boy die."

"Granger?" repeats a voice from the sitting room, and the Assistant appears in the doorway, a frown on his face as he looks at Hermione. "I thought you looked familiar last night. What's a Mudblood doing here?"

Hermione's gaze narrows angrily.

"You'll not use that word in this house," Snape scolds. "Miss Granger is here for the same reason you are; she has nowhere else to go."

"Harry said Mudbloods are being rounded up and catalogued. She should go back to her filthy parents."

Snape slams his mug down on the table. "I will not tell you again. You will not use that language in this house. Don't think I won't punish you if you do."

The Assistant matches Snape's glare. "You're not my dad."

"No, but I _am_ the resident adult. This house is not big enough for us all and you will _not_ cause strife just because you think being raised by Lucius Malfoy makes you better than everyone else."

"I don't need Lucius to make me better than everyone," the Assistant replies snottily. "I'm the Boy Who Lived."

"In this timeline, the Boy Who Lived is a pariah. He murdered the light side's leader and he betrayed the dark. There are barely a handful of people that don't hate him and you're in the presence of most of them. Moreover, the fact that your mother sacrificed herself for you does not make you better than anyone else, and if you think it does then you shame her and what she did."

The Assistant flushes angrily, turns, and storms up the stairs. Moments later they hear a door bang.

"He's even more of a prick than Draco was at thirteen," Tyler mutters, and the tension in the room bursts as Hermione snickers and laughs, and even Snape's eyes flash with amusement.

* * *

The Assistant hates this imposter. Hates him for looking like the dad he lost, hates him for speaking in a voice that the Assistant had forgotten, hates him most of all for saying things he thinks his dad might say.

He doesn't disregard his mother's sacrifice. He wouldn't do that. But he's still special, important. No one else has power like him. Except Harry, but he doesn't count because they're kind of the same person. Even if that power is because of his deal he's still special and no one except Lucius knows it isn't inherent. He's the Boy Who Lived and it _does_ make him special, just not the part about his mum dying.

* * *

Snape takes his time drinking his coffee, but when there's no sign of Draco or Harry by the time he finishes, he reluctantly gets up and goes to check on them. When he gets there, only Harry's in his room, on the floor with both palms pressed to the carpet and his head bowed. A glance down the hall shows the bathroom door open, making him wonder if Draco has gone into the third bedroom to speak with the Assistant.

"Harry, are you alright?"

"Draco's gone."

"Gone where?"

"I made him angry and now he's gone away and I..." He trails off and his breathing starts to grow panicked. He lowers himself until his forehead touches the carpet and Snape steps in, closing the door behind him then moving forward to kneel in front of Harry. "I made him go away. I made Riddle go away and Draco and everyone's going to go away and I'll be lost and alone and—"

"I'm not going anywhere, Harry," Snape interrupts softly. "You won't be lost and you won't be alone. Draco will come back."

Harry shakes his head, letting out a distressed mewling sound.

"Tell me what happened," Snape orders quietly. "Tell me what made him angry."

"I told him."

"Told him what?"

"I told him about Crowley and my deal and dying and now he won't come back. He doesn't want me, doesn't want me to die, he won't come back."

"Of course he doesn't want you to die; he loves you. But he will come back. He's just upset and he needs a little time to think about what you told him. But he will come back, Harry."

Harry doesn't respond to that, except to suddenly grab at Snape's robes and lean into him. Snape wishes he could say it's a sign of improvement that Harry is willing to hold onto him for comfort, but he thinks it's just the opposite, that Harry's so desperate for something to anchor him in reality in the wake of Draco's disappearance that he'll cling to whoever he can.

"Let's go outside," he suggests.

"I have to stay here and wait for him."

"He'll find you in the garden. You like it out there."

But Harry shakes his head again. "I have to wait for him."

* * *

Lucius has never associated with drug dealers. He recognises that lesser men often need something to get through their day and that the trade of illicit potions is a profitable market, but drug dealers are a breed of criminal he considers beneath him. Even so, it's easy enough to find one willing to exchange a vial of forest green potion for a handful of coins and not ask questions about the face hidden under a mask, but then Lucius expects as much. Only an idiot would dare question anyone wearing a Death Eater's mask in this climate. Voldemort rules Britain; only the truly desperate try to convince themselves otherwise.

He pockets the potion and mask as he moves through London from Knockturn Alley to the sole wizarding apartment building in the country. He goes up to the fifth floor and after a few muttered unlocking spells, lets himself into apartment 507.

Yaxley is sprawled on the sofa, forehead creased, jaw clenched tight, and whimpers coming from him, clearly in the throes of a nightmare. Lucius watches for a moment, not particularly concerned by the other man's anguish, but eventually takes the green potion from his pocket, forces Yaxley's mouth open, and tips it down his throat, using a spell to make him swallow. It takes several minutes for Yaxley to come around and when he does he doesn't move, just looks up at Lucius with haunted eyes.

"The Assistant came to me last night."

Yaxley straightens in his seat, but doesn't rise. "Lucius—"

"Be quiet, Preston," Lucius interrupts in a tone not to be ignored. "I've always known what you were, but I overlooked it as I overlook a lot of my colleagues less desirable qualities. But what you did to the Assistant is too far and I am interfering now."

"It's not your pla-"

"Shut. Up."

Yaxley snaps his mouth shut. Lucius leans down, placing one hand on the back of the sofa and forcing Yaxley to lean back or have their faces nose to nose.

"You are a perverted piece of filth," Lucius murmurs. "The fact that you went so far as to poison the Assistant just to make him younger is beyond disgusting."

Yaxley opens his mouth to speak, but then shuts it again without saying anything.

"You will not get him back, Preston. I cannot take his Slave Bond, nor do I want to, but I will keep him and you will not say a word to the contrary. You won't use the magic of the Bond to call him to you, and you won't attempt to summon the Dark Lord to implore him to support your claim on the boy, nor will you mention to anyone that I've left the Manor."

Lucius leans in closer then, lip curling into a sneer to finally display some of the disgust he feels. "If the Dark Lord did not look upon you so favourably, I would ensure you ended up in Azkaban, Preston, but if you lay your hands on another underage boy again, I might find myself convincing the Dark Lord that you're not, in fact, as useful as he perceives you to be. Have I made myself clear?"

* * *

The last thing Draco expects to find when he Apparates back to the house is Tyler, the Assistant, and Hermione passed out on the living room floor. He draws his wand, gut twisting as he checks the kitchen and dining room before moving quietly upstairs, briefly considering going back to the Manor to get his parents but too worried about Harry to actually do it.

Snape doesn't quite let out a relieved "Thank Merlin" when the door opens and Draco steps inside, but it's close. It's almost midday and Harry has refused to let go of him. He's got a dead leg, he desperately needs a piss, and he knows he should check on the other three to make sure they haven't actually killed each other.

Harry's grip tightens on his robes. "Draco?"

"Harry, are you alright?" he asks worriedly, hurrying in to drop down beside them. Harry immediately lets go of Snape and latches himself onto Draco instead. "Are you hurt? What happened?"

"You left. I thought you wouldn't come back."

"Of course I'd come back, but what happened? Granger, Tyler, and the Assistant are all passed out downstairs."

"They were fighting," Snape answers. "Harry put them to sleep."

"Oh," Draco says. "I thought..." He leaves it hanging and puts his wand away, wrapping both arms around Harry instead.

Snape gets to his feet, staggering slightly as his dead leg tries to give out, but he stays on his feet and heads for the door.

"Sir? My father said to tell you that Preston Yaxley has been dealt with."

Snape looks back at Draco. "Dealt with how?"

"He didn't say, just that he made sure that Yaxley won't be a threat to us and he won't try using the magical bond to call the Assistant to him, so we don't have to worry."

Snape nods, but he worries as he heads to the bathroom. He knows Lucius is skilled in silencing people—it's his speciality—but his message isn't enough to ease Snape's concern about the potential threat that Yaxley presents. Unfortunately, it's also the only possibility he has of Yaxley being removed as a threat and he has little choice but to hope Lucius has dealt with him, and done so in a way that keeps them all safe and not just Lucius.

* * *

"I thought you wouldn't come back."

Draco strokes his hands over Harry's hair. "Why would you think that?"

"You were angry."

"I'm upset, not angry."

Harry pulls away, sitting up and lifting a hand, reaching blindly for Draco's face. His fingers touch a forehead and he shifts it to cup Draco's cheek. "I'm sorry."

"Can't you break it?" Draco asks in a whisper. "Isn't there some way to stop you dying?"

Harry shakes his head. Draco closes his eyes and lifts his hand to lay it over Harry's. "Why did you never tell me?"

"I didn't want to hurt you."

"You think it wouldn't have hurt me if you'd died without ever telling me why?" he says, unable to keep the hurt and anger from his voice.

"I'm sorry," Harry says again, voice quivering. "I would have told you."

"When? The day you died?"

"No. I don't know. I'd have told you. After the Dark Lord's dead."

"There has to be a way out of it. Maybe the Assistant was wrong about the Horcrux."

"Sirius looked. He even asked Dumbledore. They never found anything, and I don't think it will."

Draco swallows thickly. "Can I hug you?"

"Okay." His voice shakes and he tenses when arms wrap around him, but Draco doesn't let go and gradually Harry relaxes into the embrace. "I'm sorry, Draco."


	108. Chapter 108

Snape waves his wand and three buckets of cleaning supplies appear in the air before him. A flick of his wand has each one floating to the repentant (Hermione), annoyed (Tyler), and sulky (the Assistant) teens in front of him.

"Bathroom," he says to Hermione. "Kitchen." To the Assistant. "Bedroom." To Tyler.

"She can use magic," the Assistant says wrists once again wrapped in cuffs to stop him using magic, as he was the one to start the fight between them. "Take away her wand."

"I'm decent enough to not use it when I've been told," Hermione replies snottily.

"Don't start!" Snape snaps as the Assistant opens his mouth to say something back. "Granger will keep her wand. You've been given your tasks, get to them. And if you get into a fight like that again, rest assured I will find something more creative than cleaning to punish you with."

* * *

Neville Apparates into an empty sitting room that afternoon. The house is extremely quiet but he can hear soft noises from the kitchen. When he looks in, he finds the Assistant scrubbing the sink and muttering to himself about imposters giving out unfair punishments, but he looks around at the sound of the door opening. Neville has his wand out in a flash, pointed at the teen.

"Who are you?"

The Assistant scowls, looking him over, and doesn't answer the question. "You're Neville Longbottom. What are you doing here?"

"I said, who are you?" Neville demands again. "How did you get in here?"

The Assistant sighs irritably. "I'm Harry Snape. I've been de-aged and apparently I used to call myself 'the Assistant', which is a stupid name."

Neville's wand wavers. "You're the Assistant?"

"That's what I just said, isn't it? Why are _you_ here? Shouldn't you be at Hogwarts, or did they kick you out for being too stupid?"

Neville stuns him.

He finds Snape, Draco, and Harry in Harry's room and the other teens both looking surprised that he's there. Snape merely gives him the same look of dislike that Neville endured for five years at Hogwarts.

"There's a teenager in the kitchen..." he begins, only for Snape to cut him off.

"It's the Assistant."

Neville nods. "He did say, but I wasn't sure so I stunned him just in case. He's very rude."

"Why are you here, Longbottom?"

"I came to see how Harry was."

Snape raises a sceptical eyebrow, but Harry answers from his bed, "I'm getting better."

"Do you, um... do you know when you're going to kill You Know Who?"

Snape and Draco both look at Harry. The issue of killing Voldemort hasn't come up since the first day. Draco has tried his best to forget about it; Snape knows it needs to be discussed again, but it never seems like a good time.

"Not yet," Harry answers. "I don't think I'm strong enough to destroy the Horcruxes yet."

Neville frowns. "You told them about the Horcruxes?"

"Yes."

"You shouldn't have. Dumbledore said not to tell anyone."

"Dumbledore's dead," Snape points out, "and his word was not law, Longbottom."

Neville frowns, but doesn't argue it. "Is the Assistant stuck like that?"

"I will be brewing an antidote for him."

Neville nods. "Okay. Um... where's Hermione?"

"Cleaning the bathroom."

Neville nods again and makes to leave. "I'm glad you're getting better, Harry."

"Do you know how many Horcruxes the Dark Lord has?" Snape asks Harry when Neville leaves, but before Harry can answer Draco butts in.

"Harry, why don't you make extra Horcruxes? It might stop—"

"No," Snape says harshly. "Splitting your soul is incredibly dangerous, especially doing it more than once, never mind what you have to do to create one. I will not let you."

"What do you have to do to make one?" Draco asks. "It must be really dark magic."

"You have to kill someone," Harry answers and Draco pales slightly.

"You've killed more than one person though... doesn't that mean your soul's already split more than once?"

Harry shakes his head. "I had to kill them, it doesn't count; it has to be someone you kill willingly. Plus you have to do a spell beforehand to make the split bit of soul go out of your body."

Draco glances at Snape and the Potions Master can see the question that Snape's been wondering himself—who did Harry kill to make his Horcrux?

Harry, oblivious to their look, explains to Snape, "The Dark Lord made six and he can't die until they're destroyed."

"Do _you_ need to destroy them?" Snape asks. "Can someone else not do it?"

"Not really. Horcruxes are really hard to destroy; there's hardly anything that'll destroy them. Basilisk venom does and so does Fiendfyre, but we've got none of the first and the second is really hard to control. I can destroy them, but it's tricky. The first time I did it I had a really bad seizure. How did you know about them anyway?"

"The Assistant told me; he mentioned that Tom Riddle's diary was one. You've already destroyed another?"

Harry nods. "Two, which just leaves three more left."

"Do you know what or where they are?"

"Not exactly. One of them Dumbledore thinks was Helga Hufflepuff's cup, one he reckons is Nagini, and the other is a ring that used to belong to the Dark Lord's grandfather. But I can Wish for them all from wherever there are so when I'm ready it's not a problem."

"Assuming you don't seize again," Draco adds and Snape's expression tightens.

"You seized last time?"

Draco nods when Harry doesn't answer. "He had four seizures in a row after destroying the diadem."

"If it drives you to seizure then the rest can be destroyed with Fiendfyre," Snape says decidedly. "Your health is precarious enough; I'm not risking it for the sake of the Dark Lord."

"It won't," Harry assures him. "I destroyed a second one just fine."

Snape's outraged. "Dumbledore let you destroy a second one?!"

"Well... no, not exactly. I did it without his permission."

"That was stupid."

"It had to be destro-"

"It was stupid," Snape repeats. "You should have known better than to put yourself at risk like that."

* * *

Hermione moves away from the not quite closed bathroom door and continues wiping down the tiled wall, pretending she didn't stop to eavesdrop the moment she heard her friend's voice. She hears footsteps approach the door and pauses, but the footsteps stop. For almost a minute nothing happens and she wonders if he's listening as carefully for a noise as she is then she hears him inhale deeply and the door swings open.

"How are you?"

"Fine," Hermione answers tersely. Neville nods, glances at her, the cleaning supplies, at his shoes.

"Why not clean it with magic?"

"Tyler, the Assistant, and I got in a fight. Snape's making us clean without magic as punishment."

"What was the fight about?"

"The Assistant kept calling me a Mudblood and Tyler a squib. He's a horrible brat and I can't wait for Snape to make the antidote for him." She drops her cloth into the bucket and folds her arms over her chest. "Why are you here, Neville?"

"I came to see how Harry was doing."

"Which you've done."

Neville nods, clears his throat, still doesn't look at her. "Hermione, I... I'm sorry about my gran."

"Really."

"She was rude. She shouldn't have done that."

"If you really think that then you'd have stuck up for me when it happened. You've made your opinion on the issue perfectly clear, Neville, and it's all over now anyway. So just go home and hate me there."

"I don't hate you!" he bursts out, finally lifting his gaze to meet hers. "Hermione, I don't! You're still my best friend, I still love you."

"You've got a funny way of showing it."

"You killed my child, and don't say that stuff about non-sentient bundle of cells. That was my child and you killed it. I was angry at you and I had a good reason to be."

"Are you still angry?"

"I can't forgive you for what you've done, Hermione, but I don't want to lose you. I still want us to be friends."

"How can we be friends if you don't forgive me, Neville? It's not possible if every time you look at me you just think 'murderer'."

"Isn't that what you think when you look at Harry?" he asks quietly.

"No," she answers immediately. Neville looks sceptical. "I don't. I know what he's done, and I also know _why_ he did it and that he hates it, and that he's been punished for it."

"He wasn't punished for it. That would require him going to prison."

"He spent four months locked away getting _tortured_. He's blind, Neville; he's wakes up every night screaming and sometimes he's so terrified that he huddles on his bed and won't let anyone near him, not even Malfoy. He might not have been punished by the legal system, but as far as karmic justice goes, I think he's more than paid for what he's done."

"Maybe you're right," Neville says. "Maybe we can't be friends anymore."

"That's up to you," she says quietly. "I want to be, but if you can't..."

"I don't know," he admits. "I guess I need some more time to think it over."

She nods, swallows around the lump in her throat. "You do that then. If you'll excuse me, I have to get cleaning."

* * *

While he's cleaning, Tyler gets a letter from Dylan Swift saying that his wife has finally relented and that, if he wants, Tyler can come stay with them for a few weeks to see how he settles in. Layla and Cid still won't be told until they come home for the holidays. He thinks about it for the rest of the afternoon and evening, but by the time night falls he still hasn't come to a decision.

The Assistant manages to be civil, albeit grumpy, for the rest of the day and Snape allows Harry to remove the cuffs just before they all head to bed. He takes the opportunity to get his collar off; although he can't over power the Magic Lock, he is able to make it grow until it's large enough to simply lift over his head. He then promptly sets it on fire.

Hermione swaps beds with the Assistant. Tyler doesn't want to share a room with the other boy and although at first Tyler says he'll sleep on the couch, Hermione offers to swap rooms, saying she doesn't mind sharing with a boy. Everyone's happier with the arrangement; they're not happy with the Assistant's smug claims that he deserves the master bedroom more than any of them. They all hope Snape will have the antidote brewed soon.

Snape needs a book with the recipe for the Age Regression Draught's antidote and Narcissa obligingly bring one and some extra potion ingredients that are needed for it, but the Assistant isn't impressed to hear that it'll still take two weeks to brew.

"I've been _poisoned_ ," he whines. "I might die before that stupid potion's finished."

"You won't," Snape tells him unsympathetically. "It takes six weeks for the A.R.D to kill someone and the antidote is effective until the last week. You'll be fine."

* * *

Friday and Saturday pass without too much trouble, but the Assistant calls Hermione a Mudblood again on Sunday; instead of getting into a fight, she Disapparates and doesn't reappear for an hour. The Assistant spends it looking smug, sure that he really got to her. To his surprise, she comes back with a bag of sweets that she offers him as an olive branch. He takes them with a smirk, amused that she thinks she can bribe him into forgetting her blood status; no one tells him what the three Ws on the bag stand for and within moments of eating the first sweet he's bleeding furiously from the nose.

"You've poisoned me!" he cries, both hands held to his face in an effort to staunch the flow of blood. Tyler sniggers and Hermione smiles.

"No, because I'm not cruel like that. But just because you've got more power than me doesn't mean I can't get my own back on you for being a bigoted little brat."

"I'm dying!"

She rolls her eyes and takes a second small paper bag from her pocket. "They're called Skiving Snackboxes. Little invention from Fred and George Weasley; I'm sure you know who they are. This will stop the nosebleed."

He grabs for it and she snatches it away from him. He glares. "Give me that."

"I think you're forgetting something."

"Give me them, you stupid Mudblood!"

Hermione's expression hardens. She draws her wand, flicks it over the bag and mutters, " _Evanesco,_ " and the Assistant wails as the bag vanishes.

"If you expect people to help you, learn some manners!" she snaps, turning and stalking out the kitchen, leaving the Assistant to turn pleading eyes on Tyler, who shrugs.

"You're a wanker. Don't expect people to be nice if you can't be."

"I'm going to bleed to death!"

"You've got super magic powers. I'm sure you can heal a bloody nose."

The Assistant manages to bite his tongue after that, but he glares at Hermione whenever they're in the same room.

Tyler approaches Snape in the kitchen that evening with a letter clutched in his hands and an unsure expression on his face.

"Sir, I, um... I got another letter from... my dad. Dylan Swift."

Snape looks at him with surprise. "Your father is Dylan Swift?"

"Yeah. He, um, he said I can go live with him. If I want to."

"Do you want to?" Snape asks, already weighing the pro and cons of him leaving. It's one less person to house and feed, but Tyler is one of the three putting money towards food. It's one less person for the Assistant to aggravate, but would leave Hermione as the only person the Assistant would annoy as he's shown himself uninterested in annoying Snape, Draco, or Harry.

"I think so. I've been thinking about it for a couple of days now, and he said it would be just a few weeks at first to see how I settle in." He pauses, then adds, "He still hasn't told Cid and Layla yet and I think he's worried his wife won't really want me there even though she's said yes."

Snape takes a moment to lament the fact that the reduced persons may very well be temporary.

"He's your father," he says. "It's up to you whether you go or not."

"If it doesn't work out..."

"Then you're welcome back here," Snape finishes, managing to keep the reluctance from his voice. But he knows he couldn't let one of his Slytherins flounder and he's certain Harry would smash him into a wall if he dares try it with one of his friends.

* * *

"Hello, Lucius."

"Evans."

"Riddle."

Lucius raises an eyebrow, settling into his usual chair. "You would use that name? The Dark Lord hates it."

"Indeed he does, but as Evans is a Muggle's name as much as Riddle is, it hardly matters, does it? Given the Taboo on my chosen name, that's hardly an option, and we're not yet far enough in our relationship to have you call me lord. That besides, I want to ensure that our relationship is different to that between my other self and his followers. So, Riddle will do for now. Call me Tom, however, and I shall be angry."

"Duly noted," Lucius says. "James has found information on exchanging magic; do you want his notes or the books?"

"Both," Riddle says with a pleased smile. "Are they in your study?"

"Yes."

The word barely leaves his mouth before Riddle makes them appear on the small table between their chairs, which groans under the sudden weight of two large books and several scrolls of parchment. Riddles reaches to brush his fingers against them, but doesn't pick any up.

"Have you finished the report?"

"Very nearly."

"Then I will wait until it is done. For now, please give me your hand."

Lucius looks at the scarred, outstretched hand. "Might I ask why?"

"I want to try and make myself see through your eyes. I think for the first try it would be best if we had physical contact."

"You plan to possess me?"

"Not at all, merely make it so that the images your eyes see translate to my own mind. It should cause you no harm."

"Should?"

Riddle smiles slightly. "Experimental magic, Lucius. One cannot make guarantees of safety, but I see no reason why it should cause you harm."

Lucius sighs and puts his hand in Riddle's, repressing a cringe at the feel of the scars along the back of it, but he's somewhat curious about what Riddle's doing. His hand is much larger than Riddle's, almost enveloping it. For a moment nothing happens then Riddle exclaims loudly and jerks his hand back, covering his face with both hands.

"Did it work?"

"Merlin, yes, why did no one tell me how utterly repulsive I look?!"

Lucius can't help the smile spreading across his face. "I seem to recall commenting on it the second night you came to me."

"Briefly," Riddle allows, hands still covering his face. "But I didn't think it was quite so awful. He's utterly mutilated us."

"You were hardly attractive beforehand," Lucius comments, eyes flicking down to his own hands to inspect his nails. "Macnair did a good job of mutilating your face when he destroyed your eye."

Riddle lowers his hands to show his mouth turned into a scowl. "I remember him. That face is the last face I saw and now it's etched into my memory forever."

"Well you appear capable of seeing through others so it needn't be any longer."

"Indeed. What happened to the magical eye they took from me?"

"I don't know. Why?"

Instead of answering, Riddle holds out one hand, palm up, and a false eye appears in it. Lucius watches with morbid shock as Riddle waves a hand slowly in front of his right eye and the mangled mess inside vanishes, leaving an empty socket. Riddle lets out only a sharp hiss of pain as he does it, though Lucius imagines it must be horrendously painful, then lifts the false eyes and pushes it into the empty socket. It rolls a few times, making an unpleasant squelching noise, but the lines across Riddle's brow ease, the pain obviously fading as the eye comes to settle in place, staring forwards as blindly as the other.

"That's better. Although..."

Riddle turns his face towards Lucius, who assumes he's still looking through his eyes, and a shimmer passes over him, the scars vanishing to leave his skin completely clear.

"Much better. I really needn't go around looking like a monster from a child's nightmare."

Riddle when he gets to his feet then and gestures for Lucius to rise as well. "I want to see my other self before I study those notes."

Lucius' eyebrows draw together and his mouth tightens. "Is that necessary?"

"Yes. He cannot harm us and I have power at hand. You have nothing to fear, Lucius."

"I'm not afraid," Lucius murmurs. Riddle doesn't call him out on the lie, merely extends his hand. Lucius looks at it. "What's that for?"

"I may be able to move around my own home with relative confidence, Lucius, but in yours I am still blind and lost. Even looking through your eyes, my body needs guidance."

Lucius reluctantly takes his hand and begins walking towards the door. "You trust me not to walk you into a wall?"

Riddle smiles. "Absolutely."

"And if I did?"

"Then I would make you walk into one yourself."

"What happened to being more gracious than your other self?"

Riddle pauses to look up at him, head cocked. "Oh, come now, Lucius, surely you're not comparing walking into a wall to being assaulted with the Cruciatus? At most you might get a sore nose," he says dryly, and continues walking.

Lucius shoots him a curious glance. Not for the first time he wonders if this fragile child is really possessed by the broken soul of the Dark Lord, or if his insanity is so great he's developed an alternate personality, or if he's in fact a genius making everyone think he's insane and taking Lucius for a ride as revenge for his part in the boy's imprisonment. This person, whoever it is, certainly doesn't seem to be the Dark Lord Lucius swore loyalty to.

"Don't forget the curse you put on the door," Lucius remarks when they reach the cellar. Riddle nods, hand tightening briefly in Lucius' own before letting go, as there's space for only one person at a time to descend the few steps. Despite looking through his eyes, Riddle is still cautious as he goes down. Reluctantly, Lucius follows him down, taking Riddle's hand again to lead him across to the hidden door. Even more reluctantly, he draws his wand and taps it to the brickwork, letting it slide open.

Lucius hasn't looked in on Voldemort since the day Harry imprisoned him. Pippin is tasked with delivering his food and she does it looking scared every time. Lucius can't blame her. Three weeks hasn't lessened the Dark Lord's rage any and he's especially furious to look up and see Harry.

"First you betray me, Lucius," Voldemort hisses, "and now you mock me by bringing that boy. What is the point? He cannot even see me to gloat."

"Oh, you shouldn't underestimate me," Riddle murmurs. "I see you just fine, _my lord_ , sat on the floor amidst my blood stains. I see your snake in her cage. I see the hatred on your face and the fury in your eyes. I see everything, my lord. It is you who is blind."

Voldemort lurches forward and only years of servitude to the man keeps Lucius in his place. Riddle is less sure, stepping back despite the collar chain that keeps Voldemort from coming anywhere close to the door. Voldemort's mouth curls into a mockery of a smile.

"I see your fear, Harry. I see the way you shake and cling to the betrayer. You cannot even bring yourself to speak my name. How much does it scare you to be back in this place, I wonder?"

Riddle smiles. "Not so much that I am unable to set foot here. As for your name... do you think me so foolish as to risk the Snatchers by speaking it? I know of the Taboo. I know how the world is now. Soon, my lord, the world will change and I shall be the one to change it."


	109. Chapter 109

_They float again in the darkness that's less dark when Riddle's there. He cherishes these moments, when he's wrapped in coldness and staring at the only thing he can see now, and knows he's safe. It makes the nightmares a little easier to handle. If it weren't for the chance to see Riddle, he thinks he would never sleep._

_"I know a way to let us see," Riddle hisses and his hand is firm on the back of his head, pulling him closer and holding him in place. He doesn't fight, lets himself relax against the cold body, face tucked into the crook of Riddle's neck. He doesn't speak, doesn't need to. He knows Riddle will tell him when he's ready, and until then he's content to simply be held._

* * *

Draco's surprised to see Harry's face clear and whole on Monday morning, with two mismatched eyes set into it, and more surprised when Harry pulls him into the bathroom and orders him to stand in front of the mirror with Harry behind him.

"What are we doing?" Draco asks, but Harry just lets out a soft, "Ohh."

Thinking something's wrong, Draco tries to turn only for Harry to grab his head and hold him in place, facing towards the mirror.

"Harry, what is it?"

"I'm looking."

"Looking?"

"I can see what you're seeing."

"What?"

"I made a Wish and now I can see what you see."

One of his hands drifts forward, fingers brushing over Draco's face, feeling the familiar contours as he has every day for the past few weeks, but this time it's even slower. Draco watches the reflection, his eyes tracking the movements of Harry's fingers as they brush over his cheeks, along pale eyebrows, lingering on his lips.

"You can really see what I see?" he asks quietly and Harry nod. He lifts a hand to capture Harry's and presses a kiss to his palm. He tries to turn again but Harry holds him still. "Harry, let me look at you."

"No. I don't want to see me. I want to see you. I missed you so much. I didn't think I would ever get to see you again."

The door open and the Assistant pauses in the doorway, a scowl on his face as there nearly always is.

"You guys have a bedroom. Use it and stop hogging the bathroom; there are six of us in this house."

Draco automatically looks at him when the door opens and Harry look around out of instinct as well, not yet having broken many habits that his blindness now render useless.

"You look grumpier than I imagined," Harry says. "Are you always scowling?"

"How would you know if I was scowling or not?"

"Magic," Harry answers annoyingly. His new-found skill fills him with a lightness that he hasn't felt in months. "I want to see Dad. And Tyler and Hermione."

Draco smiles. "Alright."

As the Assistant watches Harry and Draco move down the hall to the stairs, he's thankful once again that he and Harry are so very different. It makes it easier to forget that they're almost the same person, which in turn makes it easier to deal with Harry and Draco being lovers. He doesn't like the implication that in different circumstances he could have been Draco's lover because that's just _wrong_. To the Assistant, Draco was only ever a brother.

* * *

"Professor?"

Snape makes a noise of acknowledgement but doesn't turn from staring at the kettle like his glare can make it boil faster.

"Could you look at me, please?"

He turns the glare on Draco. He hasn't had his morning coffee yet and he's not in the mood for whatever it is the boy has to say, but the glare doesn't last because mere moments after he looks at Draco, Harry, stood beside the blond, smiles and the sight of it is enough to shock Snape out of his grump. It's the first smile Snape's seen on his son in... well over a year, he realises. Not since before he was forced into being a Death Eater. Even more shocking is the fact that there's not a single scar visible on Harry's face and he appears to have two perfectly normal, albeit mismatched, eyes.

"You look tired, Dad."

"Of course I look tired," Snape says bitingly, pushing past the shock. "I've got five bloody kids to look after in a house—" he breaks off, suddenly realising the implication of Harry's words. "You can see?"

"No, not me, but I can look through Draco."

Snape's gaze flicks to Draco then back to Harry. "You're possessing him?"

"No, just seeing what he sees."

"And your face?"

"Just a glamour, except the eye. I Wished for it back."

* * *

"Why did you decide to use a glamour?" Draco asks Harry sometime later when they're back in his bedroom, sat together on the bed, and Harry's no longer looking through him.

"Because I'm disfigured and ugly."

"You're not ugly."

Harry turns his face away. "Don't lie to me. I'm covered in scars. Even though most of them keep me safe, they're ugly. Don't say they're not to try and make me feel better."

Draco doesn't. Harry reaches out and presses his palm to Draco's cheek then shuffles forward until their knees are almost touching.

"Do you still love me?" Harry asks.

"I'll always love you."

"Why?"

"Do I need a reason to love you?"

"They broke me, Draco. They made me ugly and insane and blind. They... they did things. Disgusting things. Horrible things. They hurt me. Why would you still love someone like that? Don't I disgust you?"

Draco reaches one hand up to put over Harry's and stretches his other forward to cup Harry's cheek. He flinches and tries to pull away but Draco presses his hand a little more firmly and Harry stops. He can still feel the scars hidden under the glamour but doesn't let them put him off.

"You will never disgust me. It doesn't matter what they've done; I still love Harry Evans. I will love you forever and I will be here for you always. I'll do whatever I have to to prove I love you."

Tears spill down from Harry's left eye. His hand shifts, shaking off Draco's and moving to rest the tips of his fingers against Draco's mouth, then he leans forward and presses his mouth to the back of his own fingers. He stays like that for a moment and Draco doesn't move, feeling the fingers tremble slightly against his mouth and unwilling to scare Harry more. Then, slowly, the fingers slide down. Still Draco doesn't move, but Harry leans forward the little bit more that it takes to make their mouths meet. The kiss is short and light, the barest press of lips against lips before Harry pulls back again. Then he grabs the hand still pressed to his own cheek, lifts it to his mouth and presses a kiss to Draco's knuckles. "I love you."

* * *

Tyler leaves on Tuesday to move in with the Swifts. Mrs Swift greets him coldly but she's not outright rude. He's set up in the guest room, which Dylan tells him will become his permanently if he chooses to stay.

* * *

Snape has a cauldron set up on the end of the dining room table and is working on the mid-stages of the antidote to the Age Regression Draught when the Assistant steps in on Thursday morning.

"I don't feel well."

"Have you been eating more unknown sweets?"

He doesn't even scowl. "No. I just feel sick and my head hurts and everything seems really loud."

"Give me a moment."

He finishes adding the butterfly wings to the potion and takes up a stirring rod, mixing it slowly eight times then lowering the temperature of the flame, watches the mixture drop from a boil to a simmer, then puts a lid on it. He goes through to the kitchen and washes his hands then returns to the Assistant, taking his wand from the table and murmuring a spell. Smoky digits appear in the air above the Assistant's head reading 37.9ºC.

"Slight fever," he says, going to the case holding his pre-made potions, of which there are now considerably fewer. He looks through it for a potion to fight fevers and the Assistant moves around the table, idly tapping his fingers against the various implements laid out by the cauldron then gives a yelp of pain. Snape whirls to see him staring at his finger tips, which have blistered.

"What did you touch?" Snape demands, coming over to inspect it.

"The knife. What the hell was on it?"

"I clean all my equipment after use," Snape says with a scowl that says he doesn't appreciate insinuations to the contrary. "Which knife?"

"The silver one."

Snape drops the Assistant's hand as if burned himself. He picks up the silver knife, lifting it to his nose to sniff just in case it was missed in cleaning, but there's no scent on it and when he brushes his thumb against it nothing happens.

"Why did it hurt me?"

Snape puts the knife down, turning and stalking out the room and towards the stairs. "You're a werewolf."

"I am not!" the Assistant cries, following him.

"You are," Snape insists, heading up to Harry's room, the Assistant following. "You have been for over a year now and I'm a fool for forgetting that the A.R.D doesn't counteract diseases. Harry, what did Lupin do on the full moons?"

"He turned into a werewolf," Harry replies with a frown, sat in bed with Draco reading to him.

"I meant, how did he restrain himself?"

"Him and Padfoot shut themselves in their room and put Locking Spells and Silencing Charms on the door, and one time I put up my protections too just in case. Why?"

"Because it's the night of the full moon and the Assistant is still a werewolf."

* * *

Draco goes to the Manor to see about locking up the Assistant there for the full moon. After some arguing, Lucius being difficult, and Narcissa putting her foot down, the Assistant's locked in the cellar, the door of which is charmed with every protection and reinforcement spell they can think of.

"Shame we can't lock him in with the Dark Lord," Draco remarks when he's back at Black Stag House. "A werewolf would tear him to shreds."

"But not kill him, and then his spirit would get away and go into hiding for another decade," Harry points out. "And I want him dead."

* * *

The Assistant groans. He hasn't felt this awful since... ever. He aches all over, he's nauseous, and he appears to have chewed on his own leg during the night. He doesn't really have the energy or inclination to move, but the floor is cold and he really needs something to drink.

He fixes his leg then conjures some clothes and drags himself to his feet, going to the cellar door and letting himself out, easily dismantling the various protections placed on it. He follows familiar pathways to the dining room, finding it empty, and slumps into a chair. His Lucius would cane his knuckles for such poor posture but he feels too dreadful to straighten up.

"Dobby!"

There's a crack and the familiar house elf appears at his side. The Assistant lets out a groan. Even this has changed; instead of being dressed in rags, as he should be, Dobby is wearing clothes.

The Assistant frowns. But clothes means he's free and if he's free, why has he responded to the Assistant's call?

"Master Assistant, you is being shrinkeded!"

"Not you too," the Assistant groans. "Doesn't anyone in this place call me Harry?"

"What is happening to you, Master Assistant? Why is you being shrinkeded?"

"Some guy gave me a potion and now I've turned into my younger self and can't remember anything. Do you work for me?"

Dobby nods. "Dobby is helping kind Master Assistant whenever he is needing Dobby. But what is Master Assistant doing here? Tis a bad, bad place, Master Assistant!"

"Hey, this is my home, you disrespectful wretch."

Dobby frowns. "Master Assistant is living with Dobby's old masters? Why?"

"Never mind that. Just get me something to drink, will you? And make it quick or you can iron your hands."

Dobby makes an indignant noise. "You is being mean, Master Assistant!"

"I don't have to be nice to wretched little house elves. Get me a drink!"

"No! Dobby is not helping mean Master Assistant! Dobby is helping Master Assistant when Master Assistant is being a good wizard again!"

And he vanishes.

The Assistant gapes for a minute then jumps when there's a pop behind him. He whirls in his seat to see a different house elf, this one female and dressed in a pillowcase. Finally, he thinks, something normal.

"Can Pippin be getting sir anything?" the elf asks demurely.

"Yes. I need a bloody drink."

A minute later he realises he should have been a little more specific, as the elf half fills the table with a pot of tea, a pot of coffee, jugs of various types of juice, a jug of milk, and a dozen bottles of different alcohols. He takes the jug of orange juice and gulps down half of it before his thirst is finally satisfied.

Just as he's debating whether he feels up to eating anything, the door opens and Draco walks in. The Assistant eyes him; he wants to like this Draco as much as he likes his own Draco, but it's hard when this Draco seems to view him as nothing more than an irritation.

Draco comes up to the table, brow furrowing as he looks over the variety of drinks. "What's all this?"

"Your house elf didn't ask me to specify when I asked it for a drink."

Draco frowns and calls for Pippin, scolding her for her mistake and then sending her off to punish herself before turning to the Assistant. "You need to go back to Harry's house now."

"Why?"

"Because Snape said so."

"I don't have to do what he says. I want to stay here."

"You don't belong here," Draco says harshly. "You have to go back to Harry's."

"You can't make me."

"Harry can. Either go back or he'll make you go back and then stop you using magic again."

The Assistant scowls, pushing his chair back and getting to his feet, expression sulky. "Fine."

* * *

Friday night finds Lucius sitting with Riddle in the drawing room once more, trying to pretend he's not nervous about what Riddle is going to do. Riddle has studied the information James found and has combined a spell into the soul transfer ritual that will, Riddle believes, bring Harry's magic along when he does the transfer. Now he just needs to reabsorb the remaining pieces of his soul, beginning now.

"If that snake bites me when you get it in here, Riddle, you can forget about my helping you from then on."

"You'll be fine, Lucius," Riddle assures him. "Just make sure _I_ am safe if I should fall into a seizure, and keep your eyes on the snake so I can see it."

"That won't be a problem," Lucius remarks dryly. He has no intention of taking his eyes off the animal.

Nagini appears on the floor between them, utterly still, but that's not enough to put Lucius at ease. He's seen her motionless before; she can still lunge at a moment's notice to sink venom-filled fangs into some poor sod's flesh. But Riddle slides off his chair and kneels beside the creature, reaching out to lay both hands on her thick body. Lucius watches warily and starts slightly when black smoke coils out of the snake. It curls and drifts to Riddle's hands and seems to sink into them, then he lets go and Nagini vanishes.

For a moment there's only silence, then Lucius asks, "It's done? You have your piece of soul?"

"I do," Riddle confirms, getting to his feet and returning to his chair. "Though it was a tiny piece, smaller even than the bit that was originally in Harry, I think."

"And what have you done with the snake?"

"Returned her to her cage. Harry must be seen to destroy them; the rest of the world cannot know about me until I am complete and ready to become king."

"When do you plan to inform Severus, Draco, and the others?"

Riddle smiles. "I have a plan, Lucius. My coronation and Harry's death will be seen by all. They will learn then."

"You intend Harry to die?"

"Oh, yes. Grateful as I am that my other self let him live, logically he was a fool to do so. Harry is a threat. I will not be stupid enough to let him live even after I've taken his power. He will die when I become king, and perhaps I will kill Severus too. It's not wise to leave distraught, vengeful men to roam."

"The Mudblood and the squib?"

"Tyler has gone to live with his father; he is not an issue. The Mudblood will be persecuted along with the rest of her kind."

* * *

_Shrouded in coldness once again, staring at the face that's no less adored for all that he can see through others now. But he's different. Eyes that were once dark are now bright red. Coldness that's become familiar now burns at every point they touch._

_Yet still he clings to Riddle, to his anchor in this darkness. He clutches at the slim waist and lets legs tangle with his as Riddle's hands cradle his face and those gleaming red eyes stare into his very soul._

_"We're ready now."_

_"Are you sure?"_

_"I am always sure. We are ready and I have a plan for you to tell them. But first, before you do, be sure to kiss Draco. Touch him and let him touch you." He shivers and Riddle's hands tighten on face, soothing even as it freezes him. "He will not harm us. We don't have to fear him. What comes will be big; you must touch Draco. Let him know you love him. Let him wipe the dirt from our skin that they left behind. When the time comes, we must be clean of everything but him. Do not fear him; he will not harm us."_

_He knows it's true._

_Riddle kisses him, innocent and lingering, and it's like ice driving straight through him. He doesn't pull away. When Riddle breaks it, cold arms shift to wrap around him, drawing him close, and those lips go to his ear._

* * *

Draco wakes up to a body pressed firmly against his back and a hand under his sleep shirt, a familiar palm pressed flat against his chest.

"Good morning," he murmurs without opening his eyes.

"Don't move."

"Okay. Can I ask why you decided to wake me up like this? Not that I'm complaining," he adds quickly.

"I'm looking."

"For...?"

"Just looking. At you."

Draco snaps his eyes open, suddenly remembering that they aren't the only ones that sleep in Harry's bedroom, but the space across from him where Snape normally sleeps is empty.

"Harry, where's Snape?"

"I moved him so we're alone."

"Moved him where?"

"The other room."

"Ah," Draco says, closing his eyes again. "If you conjure a mirror and do your thing, you could see me properly."

He feels Harry shake his head. "No, I need to feel, to remember. I don't need to see you, just look."

And he does. Draco lets himself be manoeuvred out of his clothes, but otherwise remains still, moving only at Harry's request, desperate not to ruin this and drive Harry back into a terrified, flinching ball of nerves.

"Do I repulse you?"

He's straddling Draco's hips, still fully clothed while Draco lies naked under him.

"No."

"Would you touch me?"

"Do you want me to?"

He nods, tenses when he feels fingers brush against his arm, but remains still as the hand glides over his scarred skin. The glamour he's worn constantly since Riddle thought of it doesn't stop Draco from being able to feel the puckered skin, but Draco doesn't let it put him off.

He pauses when he reaches the edge of Harry's shirt sleeve. "Will you take it off?"

Harry does so, shaking as he does.

"You don't have to if you're uncomfortable, Harry," Draco assures him quietly.

"I'm okay," he lies.

_We must be clean of everything but him. Do not fear him; he will not harm us._

"I'm okay."


	110. Chapter 110

Snape wakes to the touch of Hermione's hand and jerks up when he realises that he's in the wrong bedroom.

"What—?"

"You just appeared here," Hermione tells him. "Bed and all. I think Harry did it."

Snape scrambles out of the bed, pulling his wand from under the pillow and stalking out the room and down to Harry's bedroom. He gets no reply to his knock, but when he tries to open the door it slams shut again. Worried, he tries again but it refuses to shift even slightly now.

"Harry?" he calls through, banging his fist against the door. "Harry! Draco!"

"We're okay!" Draco's voice calls back.

"Open the door."

"We're fine, sir, really."

"Harry?"

"I'm okay." Quiet, but not fearful, panicked, or distressed. Snape lowers his hand, frowning, unsure if he should really let it go.

"What's all the noise about?" the Assistant asks, sticking his head out the master bedroom door.

"Nothing. Go back to bed."

"I'm awake now," he counters, stepping out. "Have they shut you out? I can make the door open if you want."

"That won't be necessary."

* * *

"It's alright," Draco murmurs, arms wrapped around Harry's shaking figure. He's still naked with Harry's shirtless on top of him, bent over now with his face buried in Draco's neck. "You're alright. I'm not going to hurt you."

"He said that," Harry whispers. "He said it wouldn't hurt, that it would feel good. He made me—made—I couldn't stop—"

"It's alright, it wasn't your fault. It's over now. You're safe here."

He trembles.

"Do you want me to get dressed again? Or you?"

To his surprise, Harry shakes his head. "I need you. I need you to make him go away, to get him off me. I love you, Draco. Please, help me get him off."

"What do you want me to do?"

Hesitantly Harry lifts his head slightly, turning to press his lips to Draco's skin, pressing feather-light kisses as he finds his way to Draco's mouth. He pauses there, hands clenching, breath shuddering as he inhales, then kisses him. Tender at first, soft and hesitant, but then he whimpers, draws back, stops himself then kisses him again, hard this time, desperate, needy, seeking for something that neither of them are sure of, but finding it.

Draco doesn't ask if he's sure about what they're doing when Harry asks him to touch him, just does as Harry asks, lets his hands drift over his skin, pauses when he flinches and cringes, but continuing when Harry kisses him and murmurs, "I'm okay."

He really is, Harry realises a little later when he's sat in the bath, knees drawn up and arms wrapped around his legs. He's shaking but not afraid or swamped by unpleasant memories. If anything, his mind is a little calmer, drifting for the moment, and he feels a little less tainted now he has fresh memories of Draco's safe hands on his skin.

But still...

" _Why can't you be here?_ " he whispers in Parseltongue, pressing his forehead to his knees. " _Why aren't you with me all the time? I need your help. I need you._ "

Ghostly lips press against the back of his neck and he shivers.

* * *

"I'm ready to destroy the Horcruxes."

He announces it at lunch and the dining room abruptly goes quiet as everyone at the table looks at him.

"What's he talking about?" the Assistant asks. No one answers him.

"Harry, are you sure?" Snape asks with a frown. "You're still recovering."

"I'm ready."

"I really think you need to wait a while longer. The Dark Lord and his Horcruxes aren't going anywhere."

"No, I need to do it. I'm ready and the Death Eaters have been in charge too long. I'm doing it."

Snape scowls. "How many are there left? Three? You do one," he says when Harry nods. "If you seize, even if it's a focal seizure that lasts two seconds, you leave the others and recover more, and you will _not_ argue with me about it. Understood?"

Harry nods.

"Good. I assume we can finish our lunch first?" he asks dryly.

"Is no one going to tell me what you're talking about?" the Assistant demands. After a brief silence, Harry does.

"I know where they are," Hermione says when they've finished eating. "The Horcruxes. I know where they are."

"How would you know that, Granger?" Draco asks. "The Dark Lord's personal confidante, are you?"

"The Assistant told me," she says, ignoring his snide tone.

"Why would I tell you?" the Assistant asks, lip curling.

"Because you're not completely unpleasant as an adult," she replies snottily.

"That's enough," Snape says before they can get into a full blown argument. "Granger, when did he tell you this?"

She tells them about the morning she and Neville found him in the woods and what he told them about the Horcruxes.

"I did get Aunt Bella's vault," Draco confirms. "I haven't been in it yet."

"How did Bellatrix die?" the Assistant asks curiously. Draco glances at Snape, who doesn't take his eyes from his lunch. Hermione shrugs. The Assistant scowls. "Fine, don't tell me, but I don't see what you expect me to do with the information of what happened to her."

"I killed her."

"You—what?"

"I killed her," Snape repeats, staring at him. "There. You know what happened. Do you feel better for it?"

"Why did you kill her?"

"Because she was a horrible human being and she tortured my son. If you're quite done asking questions—Harry, can you Wish for things from Gringotts?"

"Probably, but I shouldn't because the goblins will still know something's missing, Dumbledore reckoned. It'd be better if Draco went and got it."

"I'm supposed to be drastically ill and bed bound at home."

"Narcissa can go," Snape suggests. "She's your mother; she should be able to get access to your vault. Let's hope the Assistant is right about you being able to get this ring, Harry, or we're all damned."

Harry makes a Wish and it appears.

"Ugly looking thing," the Assistant remarks as Harry picks it up. "Can't blame you for wanting to destroy it. Does it really contain a piece of the Dark Lord's soul?"

"Yes," Harry answers.

"Do you mind if I inspect it first?" Snape asks. Harry curls his fingers around it, drawing it closer. "I just want to have a look, Harry."

After a moment's hesitation, he uncurls his fingers and extends his hand. Snape takes the ring from him and Harry Wishes to see through his eyes as he inspects it, turning it over in his fingers, peering at the scratches on the black stone. He draws his wand and murmurs a few spells that seem to provide no results but which make Snape's expression darken.

"It certainly is an incredibly dark object," he declares eventually, reluctantly handing it back to Harry. "Destroy it quick."

Snape doesn't like the black smoke that coils out of the ring before Harry destroys it, but Harry doesn't seize and when Snape inspects the mangled bit of metal that's left afterwards, it's definitely lost whatever power it had.

_Ohh... that was a big one. I am so very close to being whole now. So, so close._

* * *

Narcissa agrees to go to Gringotts for them and Harry creates a replica of the cup so she knows what to look for. He's impatient as they wait for her to return, pacing the living room.

"I want it over with," he answers Snape when he asks why he's so restless. "I want him dead."

He practically snatches the cup from Narcissa when she returns. Snape seriously doubts the wisdom of letting him destroy it but he doesn't even get time to raise an objection. Harry curls both hands around the cup and, as with the ring, black smoke coils around his fingers before the metal groans and twists, and then it slips from his hands as Harry stiffens and collapses into a seizure.

* * *

_Cold. So cold his skin burns and he wants to scream. Tears spill down his cheeks and Riddle kisses them away, catching the salty drops on his tongue. Riddle scares him now, scares him like he has so many times before his imprisonment, but still he can't help clinging to him. He doesn't look, just drifts with his eyes closed, consumed in that freezing cold, feeling icy lips press against his face._

_"You have been good to me, Harry, and I wish I didn't have to destroy you, but it is my time to reign now."_

_That voice pierces through him and he has no chance to say anything because Riddle's mouth is on his, harsh and dominating and so, so cold._

* * *

Riddle wakes up in Harry's bed. Draco holds one of his hands and he can hear the murmured voices of Snape and Narcissa nearby. He doesn't move, but lets out a soft sigh of annoyance at the fatigue in his body, grateful that he won't be in it for much longer.

"Harry?" Draco, soft, probing. "Harry, are you awake?"

"Yes," he answers, and makes a Wish. Instantly his head is filled with the sight of himself, looked on from above. His glamour has fallen and he immediately pulls it back into place. He has no desire to see Harry's mutilated face.

"How are you feeling?"

"Fine."

"Doubtful," Snape counters, coming over. Draco doesn't glance at him so Riddle is still only able to hear him. "You seized for almost ten minutes."

"I'm fine," he says again.

"You're spending the rest of the day in bed," Snape says and Riddle represses his annoyance at the declaration. It won't do to reveal himself early. "Destroying Nagini can wait."

"Then call Lucius," he says and gets a moment of silence in which he's certain they're all baffled. Draco stares at him for a moment then glances around at his mother and Snape, both of whom have frowns on their faces, before looking back at Riddle.

"Harry, why do you want Father?"

"I have a plan," he tells them. "To kill the Dark Lord. Lucius needs to hear it; I'll need his help."

Snape's not impressed. "You're not attempting to kill the Dark Lord after a seizure!"

"Did I say I would?" Riddle retorts. "I will rest, but I need to tell my plan. Bring him here. And the Assistant and Hermione, I suppose."

With clear reluctance, they agree and Narcissa leaves to fetch Lucius. It's ten minutes before Lucius stalks into the room.

"You have some nerve, boy," he sneers. "I am not some pet to be summoned at will."

Riddle resists the urge to smile, instead cocking his head and saying, "And yet you came, Lucius."

Lucius says nothing and Riddle is certain that he's aware of who he really is.

"What's this plan?" Snape asks with obvious reluctance.

"The Dark Lord cannot be killed in private," Riddle says. "It needs to be seen by everyone if people are to truly know he's dead."

"You're going to kill him in public?" Draco asks. "Where?"

"Hogwarts."

"You can't take You Know Who to Hogwarts!" Hermione cries from her spot by the window. "He'll attack the students!"

"I'm not stupid; I'll leave him in the shackles he's currently locked in. He won't be a danger to anyone."

"Why there?" Narcissa asks. "Why not the Ministry?"

"Because they're the next generation, they're the ones that need to see it. It has to be there. Besides, the Ministry is full of Death Eaters, but..."

"But what?" Snape asks, not liking his tone. There's something wrong with Harry, Snape thinks. He's not entirely sure what, but there's definitely something off about him and it makes Snape's skin crawl. He doesn't like thinking such things about his son, but he can't help the flicker of unease in his gut.

"They should see their master fall as well. It's not as if we can simply walk into Hogwarts with the Dark Lord bound. There are, after all, several Death Eaters in residence. My plan is this: acting as the Dark Lord, I summon the Death Eaters, all of them, to Malfoy Manor and inform them that the time has come for Harry Evans to die, that it is time the world saw that the Boy Who Lived is truly broken and defeated. Just as the Dark Lord should die at Hogwarts, I would say Harry Evans must die there. With the Dark Lord disguised as me, I will take them all to Hogwarts, where Lucius can have James call a meeting of the staff and students. Once there, I can bind the Death Eaters, reveal myself, and finally destroy the person that's plagued my life for so long."

"You're mental," the Assistant declares. "You can't just pretend to be the Dark Lord. That's crazy."

"I'm inclined to agree with the Assistant," Snape says. "That's a dangerous plan, Harry."

"Not to mention it would require you facing the very people who tortured you," Narcissa points out softly.

"I can handle it fine," Riddle says, annoyed at their arguments and tempted to Wish them into going along with it. Why can't they all be as agreeable as Lucius? "I've been thinking about it for a while now. This plan will work."

"Until some Death Eater realises you're not really the Dark Lord," Draco remarks.

"They won't. I will ensure it with magic if need be. I am getting rid of the Dark Lord; any plan with him would be dangerous."

"Killing him while he's locked up wouldn't be. Then you can just deliver the body."

"The Death Eaters would all know he died," Snape adds. "We'll feel it and the Mark will fade."

"And then they will all flee, or continue to run the world as it is. They're all in positions of power; why should they give that up just because the Dark Lord is dead? With this, they will all be in Hogwarts. I will have them bound and ready for the Aurors to arrest the moment the deed is done."

"The boy does have a point," Lucius says and Riddle holds back a smile. It is good to have someone already on his side. "It would be more practical to have everyone in one place and the Muggle lovers may not believe the Dark Lord is truly dead if it's not seen by someone on the light side. They will hardly trust us, and the word of one Mud- _Muggleborn_ ," he sneers when Snape and Hermione glare at him, "is unlikely to satisfy the masses."

There's more argument for a while, but eventually they all agree to it, if reluctantly. Snape's still adamant on Harry staying in bed the rest of the afternoon and Riddle unhappily concedes. It won't help him to cause strife and reveal himself too early. He spends most of the time feigning sleep; the less he has to interact with the rest of the house's occupants, the less he has to pretend he's Harry.

* * *

"Sir, can I speak to you in private please?"

Snape's instinct is to caustically ask Hermione why he would ever have reason to talk with her in private, but the tremor in her voice and the white-knuckled grip she has on a sheet of paper makes him keep his silence, instead rising from his bed, from which he's been watching Harry sleep, and follows her through to the bedroom she now has to herself after Tyler's leaving.

"What is it?" he says sharply, making it clear that while he's willing to hear her out, he's not in the mood to beat around the bush. In response, she hands him the paper she holds.

"The Assistant gave me this before he left. He said I should only read it when Harry had destroyed all the Horcruxes. I know he still has Nagini to do, but because of his plan I thought it was okay to open it now and... well..."

_Hermione,_

_I'm sorry to put this on you, I really am, but you're the only one I trust not to open this until the right time. Severus would read it in a heart beat and it's better for everyone to leave this information until late. I trust you'll show him this anyway._

_There's one more horcrux besides what you already know about – Harry._

_Yes, you read that correctly, and no, I'm not lying. V intended to make a horcrux the night he attacked Godric's Hollow and while he thinks he failed, he didn't. There's a bit of his soul inside Harry._

_And yes, Severus, there's a bit inside me too, but it's not from *your* V so killing me won't solve your problem._

_Harry has to die BUT it's not necessarily permanent. Long story short: Harry's blood carries the protection Lily left on him when she sacrificed herself and the potion V used to resurrect himself used Harry blood – thus, V has some of the protection in him. As long as it lives in him, it lives in Harry. This means V can't kill Harry with the Killing Curse, not bodily in any case. His soul is a different matter, but as long as Harry wants to live then he can._

_Put simply – if Harry lets V kill him, the horcrux will be destroyed, but Harry can keep living. If he wants to. If not... I can't help you with that._

_But it has to happen if you want to be able to kill V. Kill him without destroying the Harry-horcrux first and you just have a repeat of '81. Smoky, bodiless V. Temporary solution._

_Sorry to dump it on you like this, but this info needs to be known and I don't know what's going to happen to me when I get to my Master._

_Best wishes killing V._

– _Assistant._

"Sir?"

Snape crumples the letter in his fist. "Not a word to anyone," he says in a low, cold voice that makes Hermione step back. Snape doesn't look at her. "I will deal with this."

"Dad!"

Snape turns and stalks to Harry's room, pausing at the door and looking in at his son. His son who can survive another Killing Curse, according to a man Snape doesn't trust and depending on his will to live, which Snape is fairly certain Harry doesn't have.

"What is it, Harry?"

His voice doesn't shake; years as a spy makes sure of that.

Harry sticks a hand out of the covers and the letter still crumpled in Snape's fist jerks away and floats across the room. When it hits Harry's palm, it turns to ash.

"I was intrigued that Hermione would want to speak to you alone," the boy says, and Snape knows in that instant that this child, whoever he is, isn't Harry, "so I watched and listened through you. Interesting information. A pity we'll never find out if it's true Harry can survive a Killing Curse."

"What—"

"Forget," the boy Wishes, and both Snape and Hermione, in the hall behind him, do.


	111. Chapter 111

On Sunday morning Riddle, Snape, and Lucius go to Voldemort, who's not impressed to see Snape with them. He doesn't say anything, nor move, just glares at the three of them with a look that would kill if such a thing were possible. But when Riddle flicks his hand and Nagini, inside her cage, bursts into flames, he gives a scream of fury, making the chains rattle as he leaps forward. Snape can't help grabbing Riddle's shoulder and drawing him back slightly. Riddle shrugs him off.

"You will pay for this!" Voldemort snarls.

" _No,_ " Riddle hisses. " _This is a time of new beginnings. The piece of your soul in her is now in me, as is every other bit of soul that you stored in Horcruxes._ "

That stops Voldemort. He stares at Riddle with loathing. " _You lie_."

" _The diary, the cup, the ring, the diadem, the snake, the locket. I have taken them all._ "

Voldemort shakes with mixed anger and fear he would never admit to. " _That is not possible._ "

" _Your hubris blinds you. Look at me. I am not Harry Evans. I am you, trapped in his body. I have more of you than you do, and now, I will take what little there is left. The splitting of our soul fractured you, made you weak and unstable. It is unfortunate but I have the chance to rectify that problem. We will be whole once again, and then I will rule this world as I should._ "

"Harry, what are you doing?"

Riddle ignores Snape and moves forward, reaching up to press his hand to Voldemort's face. Snape starts to move but Riddle Wishes him in place. Voldemort's hands jerk up as if to throttle him, but they barely brush against Riddle's throat before he crumbles to the floor, screaming. Riddle moves with him, keeping his hand in place, teeth gritting as he fights to take the piece of soul from Voldemort. It's not as easy as with the Horcruxes, which had much less will of their own. Voldemort fights him, struggling to remain in himself, but in the end the vastness of the soul in Riddle is more than he can fight.

"Is it done?" Lucius asks when Riddle rises to his feet.

"What's done?" Snape asks urgently, still unable to move. "Harry, what have you done?"

"Yes," Riddle answers Lucius. "I am whole again."

"And your feelings towards me?"

Riddle turns. "You can relax, Lucius. You are still my general. As I told you before, the piece of me in him was so small that it has almost no effect on myself. Your treachery will not be punished; you have proven yourself more than useful. Now it is time to call the others and take my throne."

Half an hour later he stands in the drawing room, Lucius at his side to act as his eyes and a motionless Voldemort at his feet, spelled to look like Harry while Riddle wears a glamour to make him look like Voldemort. With no soul, he has little inclination to fight, speak, or indeed do anything at all. In front of Riddle, forty Death Eaters stand waiting for his instructions and Snape stands in the corner, hidden under James' Invisibility Cloak and his memory wiped of what occurred in the cellar.

* * *

At Hogwarts, the students stand nervously in the Great Hall, now empty of the house tables, while every member of staff is collected at the front of the hall, standing where their table usually sits. The Carrow siblings are at either end, unpleasant smiles on their faces and their wands in hand as a silent threat to anyone who might act out, while James stands front and centre. They and McGonagall are the only ones aware of what's going to happen, but rumours have reached the ears of everyone else and it's impossible not to figure out that something big is going on.

Draco is among the students as well, 'recovered' from his illness but decidedly vague on exactly what was wrong with him. No one questions that he's been ill; he's got shadows under his eyes from four weeks of disturbed sleep and he's pale with worry about Harry, unhappy about not being with him. Narcissa was adamant, though; she wasn't going to let Draco stay with the Death Eaters. The Assistant and Hermione stand in the corner, made invisible by the Assistant, who is doing it under threat of having his magic suppressed if he doesn't play nice and ends up getting Hermione caught.

Heads turn when the doors to the hall open. It doesn't take long for the shrieks and screams to start, and the carefully ordered students scatter, backing away from the snake-featured figure in the doorway, the masked Death Eater standing proudly at his side, and the floating, brutalised figure before him. They stand with their backs to the walls, more than a few with their wands drawn and held in shaking hands. The figure that looks like Voldemort says nothing and looks at no one as he moves forwards, 'Harry' floating before him and the Death Eater walking alongside him. As he moves further in, more robed figures file into the hall, all masked, and the students grip their wands tighter.

In the corner, the Assistant fidgets as he feels Yaxley enter the hall. He knows exactly which of the masked Death Eaters is him and he's fairly certain Yaxley knows he's there as well despite his invisibility. It makes him uncomfortable, the man's presence eliciting a peculiar mix of hatred, longing, fear, and need. Only knowing that he can't mess up the plan keeps him from transfiguring the man into something harmless, as Harry tells him he'd done once before.

Halfway down the hall, Voldemort stops, flicks his wand, and the floating figure accompanying him drops to the floor with a thump. He doesn't move, lying in a crumpled heap on the floor even as Voldemort walks past him and approaches the teachers. The Death Eaters spread themselves out, some staying near the doors, others moving up to the teachers, some sneering behind their masks as they spread out in front of the students. Voldemort comes to a halt in front of James and turns his back on him to face the students.

"Death Eaters, raise your wands."

There are a few questioningly glances among the Death Eaters at that and no one moves until the one beside Voldemort lifts his wand in the air. The others quickly follow suit, arms rising until about forty wands point at the grey, overcast ceiling. The students exchange glances, just as confused as the Death Eaters.

"Thank you," Voldemort says, but he doesn't sound like Voldemort anymore. "That's much appreciated."

The wands jerk out of their owners' hands and float up to the ceiling where they hover among the candles. There are cries of outrage and surprise, but they don't last long. Ropes appear and bind themselves around the Death Eaters, knocking them off balance to tumble to their floor, until forty masked figures lie struggling uselessly. The only ones left standing are Lucius at Voldemort's side, James, and Narcissa, who immediately throws off her cloak and mask, which she reluctantly donned to remain inconspicuous.

"In case anyone hasn't figure it out yet," Riddle says, dropping the glamour over himself and Voldemort, "I'm not the Dark Lord, and that is not Harry Evans."

"MURDERER!"

The cry comes from Ron Weasley. Immediately after, there's a shimmer by the door as Snape pulls off the Invisibility Cloak.

"That's mine," Riddle hears James mutter from behind him. Lucius half turns towards him and murmurs, "Quiet, Precious."

"Be quiet, Weasley," Snape snaps in a tone that none of the students have forgotten but thought they'd never hear again. Murmurs fill the hall, unable to keep quiet at the unexpected turn of events. Draco pushes through from the students to go to Riddle's side, glaring around as if daring anyone to say anything. In the corner, the Assistant lets the invisibility drop from Hermione and himself.

Riddle lifts a hand into the air and snaps his fingers. The noise is ten times as loud as it should be and several people flinch, but silence falls. He moves forwards until he stands over Voldemort's crumpled form and turns slowly, letting everyone see him. The runes scars are hidden under a glamour but he lets show the vicious one Macnair caused. As unpleasant as Riddle finds the visage, he knows the effect it will have on the onlookers. He's not disappointed; looking through Lucius' eyes, he can see the morbid fascination on many faces as they stare at him.

When he's sure he has everyone's attention, he turns to face the space between him and the staff. Everyone watches with confusion, curiosity, and mild apprehension as he lifts his hand. Then, from the bottom up as though growing out of the floor itself, a throne appears, elaborately carved of a dark wood with black leather in the seat and back rest.

When it's done, he holds out his hand. "Draco."

Draco moves forward, frowning, and takes his hand. "Harry, what are you doing?"

"Humour me." Riddle pulls him to the chair, and gently pushes him into it. Lucius stiffens but doesn't move. Riddle stands right in front of Draco, who's still frowning, and lifts his hands. A platinum crown appears and he carefully places it on Draco's head before stepping back. The throne spins and Riddle smiles as Lucius' gaze falls on his son, allowing Riddle to see him too.

"Beautiful, don't you think?" he says to Lucius, who's eyes burn with anger as they flick to Riddle.

"I think you've lied to me, Riddle."

Riddle smiles. "Of course I lied to you, Lucius. I knew you'd never agree to the plan otherwise."

"What plan?" Draco asks, panic seeping into his voice as he realises he can't move from the chair except to turn his head. "Harry, what's going on?"

"I'm not Harry," Riddle says loudly, though he could have spoken in a whisper and still everyone would have heard. Snape moves forwards from his spot by the door, wand in hand, expression hard and eyes fixed on Riddle. The Assistant moves from his corner to join Snape, wary and confused eyes on Riddle and trying to ignore the innate knowledge that the Death Eater lying just ten feet away is Preston Yaxley.

"My name is Tom Riddle. Most of you know me as Lord Voldemort. This," he says, stalking over to Voldemort and kicking him, "is nothing but a soulless husk."

"What have you done to my son?"

Riddle turns to Snape. "He's still in here, Severus. Safe and sound and still a scared, pathetic little boy. When I've transferred myself into Draco, you can have him back. Dead, of course, but there's a price for everything."

"What the hell is going on?" Ron calls from the crowd of students.

"It's really quite simple, Weasley," Riddle replies. "Lord Voldemort will rise again—whole and sane—and I will do it from Draco Malfoy's body."

"You'll not touch my son!"

The shout comes from Lucius, but he, Snape, Narcissa, and James all flings spells at Riddle. None of them hit their mark, bouncing off a shield mere moments before their wands all suddenly leap from their hands, and everyone else who'd gone for their wands, realising that there might be a fight, suddenly finds their own gone. A glance upwards shows them all now hovering near the ceiling with the Death Eaters wands. When Narcissa and Lucius try to approach the throne, they're held back by an invisible shield.

"Can't you do something?" Snape whispers to the Assistant.

"No," he replies tersely. "He's stopping me."

"Wait," says one of the Death Eaters, "so you're the Dark Lord in Evans' body?"

"I am," Riddle confirms.

"Then why are we tied up? We're your Death Eaters; we should be standing free, not those traitors!"

"Because I am dissatisfied with the people my other self surrounded himself with. Half of you are incompetent, weak, and of questionable use. There will be a large change in the soldiers when I am king, so if you want to endear yourself to me I strongly advise you to shut up."

The Death Eater snaps his mouth shut and cowers.

"What exactly are you planning to do?" Snape asks, trying to keep Riddle occupied as he hurries to think of a plan... though he's not sure how any of them can hope to fight him when they're wandless and he's wielding power the rest of them can only dream of.

Riddle holds up his hand and a sheet of parchment appears in it. "As I said, Severus, I intend to transfer my soul into Draco's body, along with every ounce of Harry's remarkable magic, and then I will rule this world as I should. My other self did a poor job of it. He was absent as no ruler should be, letting the rats he surrounded himself with do all his work."

"How did you get into Harry?" Draco asks, the anger in his voice not quite hiding the fear he feels. "How long have you been there?"

"I've been here his whole life, ever since I tried to kill him as a baby. Oh but Draco, you needn't look so distraught," Riddle says, moving to stand before him, a gentle smile on his face. "I may have been here, but I was not in control. What there was between you was real. He loves you. Very good that he does, too, otherwise this ritual I'm going to do wouldn't work. It requires a strong connection between the host and target bodies, you see. The love between you two is more than enough and the intimacies you've shared only encourage it; it's why I pushed him to get more physical with you."

"You promised me my son wouldn't be harmed," Lucius says. "You promised my family would be safe."

"You knew about this?" Narcissa asks.

"I knew about Riddle," Lucius confirms, "but I swear to you, Narcissa, that I had no idea he would attack our son."

"You trusted the Dark Lord's word?!" she cries. "You betrayed him, Lucius! Did you really think he would forgive that?"

"Do calm down, Narcissa," Riddle remarks. "This has nothing to do with Lucius' betrayal and I am going to keep my word. Draco will not be harmed. He will remain in his body with me and I can assure you that I will not do anything to damage said body. I really don't see why either of you should object. I am going to make your son a king."

"You haven't answered Draco's question," Snape says. "How did you get into Harry?"

"As I said, I've been here since I tried to kill him as a babe, just a little piece of me that latched onto him when the curse failed. Then I absorbed the rest of my soul pieces until I was complete again."

"And now you plan to transfer yourself to Draco? Why? Why not to your own body?"

Riddle's lip curls. "That thing on the floor? Why should I want to go back to that, Severus? That body is flawed, ugly, and not even pure of blood. In Draco, I will be young, beautiful, and come from one of the oldest bloodlines in the country. I will be everything a king should be, and when I am I will destroy that useless body. But you, Severus, you are asking a lot of questions. Do you hope to stop me?"

Snape says nothing.

"I think you do, Severus, and you're a fool to think it. I have power the rest of you could never hope to wield."

"You'll lose it when you leave Harry's body."

"No, I will not. I am taking every ounce of this power with me until Harry Evans is as powerless as a Muggle. I am done talking."

The throne spins again. Riddle goes to it, standing before Draco, who can do no more than glare at him. He lifts the piece of parchment, making it floats in the air beside him, and a dull, droning voice reads, " _Liga mihi magicae in te_."

Riddle reaches forwards to cradle Draco's face with both hands.

"Get off me," he snarls, trying to jerk his head free, but Riddle tightens his grip, mouth curling into a smile.

"Don't fight me, Draco. I'm going to make you royalty. _Liga mihi magicae in te..._ "

" _Ipse capio, surge ex te_."

" _Ipse capio_ —"

Riddle cuts off in mid-sentence. His brow furrows and he tries again. " _Ipse capio_ — _No_ ," he hisses in Parseltongue. Then, abruptly, he's staggers back from Draco, looking stunned, then snarls. "Stop that!"

The onlookers glance at one another, confused, but Snape's eyes flash as he remembers seeing Harry knocked back and strangled by an invisible assailant. Riddle rolls his head like he's working a kink out of his neck.

"You will not stop me, Harry," he growls, stalking back to the throne, roughly grabbing Draco's face again.

"He's fighting you," Draco says fiercely. "He won't let you do this."

"He will not stop me. He cannot. _Ipse capio, surge ex te_."

" _Tolle de hoc corpore anima mea perficiant_ ," the parchment reads.

" _Tolle de hoc corpore anima mea perficiant..._ "

" _Tollite me magicae penitus_."

" _Tollite me_ —stop it," he hisses, angrily, and his hands clench on Draco's face hard enough to make him gasp slightly. " _Tollite me magi_ \- I said, STOP IT!"

"Fight him, Harry."

"Shut up," Riddle commands him.

"Harry, fight him. Stop him, I know you can."

Riddle crushes his hand to Draco's mouth, silencing him, but from behind him, Snape speaks.

"Harry, you can stop this. Don't let him hurt Dra-" he breaks off with a scream as pain lashes through his body, but it lasts only as long as it takes for him to drop to the floor.

"Be happy, Severus. He doesn't want your harmed either."

"Burn the parchment, Harry," Snape says. "He needs—" Another scream, longer this time. The corners of the parchment start to smoke and curl, but Riddle snarls and it stops, as does Snape's scream. But by then others are catching on.

"Destroy the parchment!" Hermione shouts. "You can do it, Harry! You can stop him!"

"Destroy the parchment!" Cid echoes. "Destroy the parchment!"

It spreads through the students and the staff until the entire hall is filled with cries to destroy the parchment and encouraging shouts aimed at Harry. Even Lucius speaks up.

"Evans, if you truly love my son you will not let him get harmed."

The Death Eaters exchange glances, unsure if they should be shouting words of encouragement to Riddle in opposition of the students, but elect to remain quiet. They aren't going to start cheering on Harry, but Riddle made it clear that he no longer approves of them.

"ENOUGH!"

The Great Hall falls quiet as everyone suddenly finds their lips sealed shut and they're only able to make muffled noises of surprise and panic. Riddle's face turns towards where Narcissa stands, staring at a spot a little to her left. He's still looking through Lucius, whose eyes flick from the throne to Narcissa as he notices Riddle's attention on her and he realises her mouth is untouched.

"You did not speak, Narcissa. Have you no words of encouragement, nothing to try and save your son?"

"I have no words for Harry. I could speak for hours trying to encourage him, but in the end I doubt it would do anything. I do, however, have a request for you."

"What might that be?" Riddle asks with a sneer.

"Take your hand from my son's mouth and let him speak just three words."

"What three?"

"Any three. Whatever words come to mind. Let him speak those three words and then you and Harry can continue your struggle for dominance."

"Three words," Riddle agrees. "Choose them carefully, Draco."

He takes his hand from Draco's mouth. For a moment he hears nothing, then, quietly, "I love you."

Riddle sneers. "So sentimental. Are you satisfied, Narcissa? Has Draco met your expectations? Has he proven himself worthy of the Malfoy line with his deceleration of love to a person who will die before midday comes?"

Riddle cradles Draco's face in his hands. "Your sentiment is appreciated, Draco, but as you can see it is not enough for him to destroy the parchment. But perhaps you would like to hear him say it back?"

He tilts Draco's head slightly and lowers his own until their mouths are mere millimetres apart. "I love you, Draco," he says, laughter in his voice, and then kisses him.

The moment Riddle's lips touch Draco's he's thrown back like he's been punched with such force that it lifts him off his feet. He lands on his back, sliding a few inches along the polished stone floor. Furious, he gets to his feet again, but takes only one step towards the throne before he staggers and falls to his hands and knees. He lets out a frustrated growl and his whole body shakes as he and Harry fight to keep control.

"M-m-mine," Harry stammers. A sweat breaks out on his forehead. "H-h-he's m-mine."

Harry knows he can't stop Riddle. Riddle's will is stronger than his with almost everything but Draco. He knows that killing him—killing the body they share—is the only way to keep everyone safe and stop Riddle from getting into Draco or anyone else, but Riddle's will to live is stronger than Harry's will to kill himself. He knows he could never take control enough to kill himself, nor destroy the parchment.

But he can't lose Draco. He _won't_. So he does the only thing he can think of, hopes that his father will remember his request and honour it, and gives up control of his body to focus on controlling his magic instead.

Snape feels cool wood touch the back of his hand. He can't see it, but when he turns his hand a wand presses into his palm. He curls his fingers around it, knowing it's his own without needing to see. Twenty-six years makes a person intimately familiar with their own wand.

Riddle surges to his feet, chuckling as he seizes control of the body. "Good boy. You know you cannot stop me. I am better than you, Harry. You have lost and—"

And then, from behind him, whispered and full of anguished pleading, he hears three words; they're followed immediately by two more, full of immeasurable anger and hatred directed as much at the caster as at the target, and all five words spoken before Riddle can process them: "Lily forgive me. _Avada Kedavra!_ "

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Riddle's ritual:   
> Liga mihi magicae in te – Bind to me the magic in thee  
> Ipse capio, surge ex te – Myself I take, Arise from thee  
> Tolle de hoc corpore anima mea perficiant – Take of this body, my soul complete  
> Tollite me magicae penitus – Take with me the magic entirely


	112. Chapter 112

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: The incarnation of Death in this chapter is the version played by Julian Richings in the TV show Supernatural. No copyright infringement is intended.

**Part 1**

Harry stands in the Great Hall. Although his eyes are two different colours, only the blue one on the left is false. His face bears no scars save for the jagged lightning bolt across his forehead and he's as transparent as a ghost, though he feels solid to his own touch.

Opposite him, only a foot away, is Riddle. Although solid in appearance, a long scar runs diagonally across his face and when he lifts his arms and pushes back one robe sleeve, he shows another band wrapped just below his elbow, as though someone has cut him up and stitched him back together again.

The staff, students, and Death Eaters have all vanished, but three adult figures stand in a triangle around the two teenagers. One of them is a stranger to Harry. He's a thin and exceptionally pale man, with jet black hair, dark eyes, and sharply defined features. He wears a black coat over a black suit and carries a cane, and there's a presence to him that makes Harry know instinctively that this man isn't human.

The other man Harry knows instantly. He's never forgotten the look of Crowley's middle-sized figure with his receding hairline and completely red eyes.

But even with a demon who terrifies him and a stranger that's not human, the third figure still captures Harry's attention far more strongly. She's beautiful, with brilliant red hair hanging just past her shoulders and bright green eyes that match Harry's own.

"Mum?" he breathes and she smiles.

"Hello, Harry."

Before even thinking about it he crosses the space between them and wraps his arms around her. A sob catches in his throat when her arms come around him and then he's crying in earnest into her shoulder, her hand stroking his back and her gentle voice murmuring nonsense comforts in his ear.

"What is this?" Riddle asks. "Who are you?"

"I'm Death."

Harry sniffs and pulls back from Lily to look around at the stranger. Riddle is staring at him, expression caught between confusion, terror, and anger.

"Death? Like the Grim Reaper?" Harry asks.

"No, like the horseman. Your mother is the reaper."

Harry looks at her. "You're the Grim Reaper?"

" _A_ reaper," she corrects, lifting a hand to stroke his hair. "Just one of many."

"I'm really dead then? You've come to take me to hell?" he asks, gaze flicking briefly to Crowley.

"As soon as my hounds destroy your little Horcrux," Crowley answers with a grin. "Then you're mine."

Terror runs through Harry, turning him a little bit more transparent.

"And me?" Riddle demands. "I cannot die."

"Everyone dies, Tom," Death replies. Riddle snarls.

"That is not my name."

"Yes, it is," Death responds calmly then turns away from him dismissively. "But you, Harry, are not dead. Yet."

Crowley growls. Harry glances at him then back at Death.

"I don't understand. Dad used the Killing Curse on me, and you're here, sir, and Mum—a reaper. If I'm not dead—"

"Then neither am I," Riddle interrupts.

"But how?" Harry asks. It's Lily who answers.

"Your body, and Voldemort's, is still alive. When he killed me, my sacrifice left a protection on you, a protection that flowed in your blood. When Voldemort resurrected himself with your blood, he took some of that protection into himself. As long as his body is alive, my protection remains and in turn keeps your body alive. That besides, the Horcrux you made ties your soul to the earth as well. It's why you're see through," she adds with a glance down his body.

"For now," Crowley adds. "You might not be dead-dead, little Evans, but you're dead enough I can chase after the rest of your soul."

Riddle laughs. "Congratulations, Harry. All that effort to make your own father kill you, and all you've accomplished is paying your debt six months early, while I will return to your body and then take Draco's."

"Actually," Crowley says, "you're coming with me too."

Riddle's attention snaps to him. "I made no deal with you, demon. My soul is not yours to take and the Mudblood bitch said neither Harry's nor my own body is dead."

"Don't you call my mother that, you bastard!" Harry yells, making as if to lunge at him only for Lily to stop him.

"He cannot hurt me, Harry."

Riddle ignores them both. "You can't take me," he says to Crowley.

"Except the contract doesn't specify Harry's soul. It states that I would get _a_ soul from the body of one Harry Evans, previously Harry Potter. You were in that body when he made the deal, even if not entirely," Crowley says, eyes lingering on the scar across Riddle's face, which Harry realises must indicate the way he split his soul and put it back together again. "Your soul is as acceptable for payment as his is."

Riddle narrows his gaze at him. "'A' soul from his body. Just one, then. You still have no right to take me."

"But I can," Lily says, drawing Riddle's attention. "Severus' curse pushed you close to death as well. If you haven't returned from the in-between world to the living one before Harry's Horcrux is destroyed, then I can take you down to hell too." Her mouth curls into a smile. "Demon deal or not, you have committed evils that ensure you will go nowhere else."

"Then I will return to the world of the living."

"No!" Harry yells, throwing himself forwards and grabbing the front of Riddle's robes. "I am not letting you go back there to kill everything I love. I'm not letting you hurt Draco!"

Riddle lifts his own hands to cup Harry's face. "You cannot stop me," he murmurs softly, smiling. "You made your deal a long time ago, Harry. You will pay for it."

"I'm not letting you go back," Harry growls. "You will remain here until my mum drags you to hell."

Both boys look around when Crowley starts slow clapping. His red eyes are fixed on Harry and his mouth is curled into a smirk.

"I out did myself with you."

Harry frowns at him, wary and confused, but it's Death who speaks next.

"No human should be able to use magic in this realm."

"He used no magic," Riddle says.

"I assure you he did, Tom. He has bound you to this plane; you cannot return to his body. In fact, you cannot go anywhere until Lily escorts you to hell." Death looks at Riddle and although his expression doesn't change Harry almost gets the impression he's smiling. "You could remain here for the rest of eternity and I can assure you that the in-between world is not a place anyone would wish to spend eternity. Souls trapped here go mad within days and twist themselves into things your small human mind cannot even begin to comprehend."

A grin spreads across Harry's face and then he starts laughing. Riddle growls and shoves him, knocking him to the floor, but Harry just laughs harder.

"You're stuck!" he says gleefully. "You're never going back to the living world. You'll never hurt another person again!"

"And you will never see your beloved Malfoy again," Riddle snarls. "You are going to hell, Harry Evans, to spend eternity being tortured."

Harry gets to his feet, still grinning. "I made my peace with that. I've known it for more than half my life. If I get to take you down with me, than I really don't mind."

"You don't have to."

Harry's grin fades and he turns to Death. "What?"

"Your body is alive. As long as your Horcrux exists and the half of your soul in it remains in the living world, you are able to return to your body."

"What?" he breathes again. "But..."

"No," Crowley growls. "He is coming down to hell. He owes me his soul; I am taking it!"

"You will take _nothing_ ," Lily retorts sharply. "You are a demon; you may trade in souls but _I_ am the one that escorts them between worlds, not you."

"And until I touch his mortal body, his soul cannot be taken," Death says.

"He owes me a debt!" Crowley yells furiously.

"Do not shout at me," Death says quietly and although he doesn't physically change or move, it suddenly feels like he stands directly before Crowley and towers over him. Crowley snaps his mouth shut. "The debt will be filled," Death continues, lifting his cane to point at Riddle. "You said yourself, demon, that his soul is acceptable payment for the deal."

Crowley looks furious.

"I can really go back?" Harry asks Death. "If I'm in my body, then I won't die? What about in six months when my ten years are up?"

"The demon will have no right to come after you," Death answers and Crowley seethes silently. "When the debt is paid by Tom, it is paid in full. Your dealings with Crowley will be done."

"How?" Harry asks vigorously. "How do I get back to my body?"

"You've got magic, little Evans," Crowley drawls in a tone that makes Harry stiffen. "Just use it."

Harry turns slowly, looking at him warily. "Why are you telling me that? You don't want me to go back."

"I changed my mind. Go back. Make sure you say hello to my puppy when she comes for you."

"But he said—"

"That I can't come for you in six months if the debt is paid now. But the debt hasn't been paid yet and I can still send my hounds for you now. I destroy your body and Horcrux at the same time, and Death will have no choice but to touch your mortal body and then you and Riddle are coming downstairs with me." He smiles. "I'll see you soon, little Evans," he says, and then vanishes.

Harry whirls to Death. "Can he really do that?"

Death nods. Lily stalks forwards, grabbing Harry by the shoulders. "Go back, Harry. You sold your soul for the power to defend yourself and Crowley gave you that power. Go back, defend yourself against the hellhounds, and _live_."

"My Horcrux," he says, glancing between her and Death, "if I took the piece of my soul back, re-absorbed it, could he still come after it? Or do I have to let it be destroyed in order for Riddle to be taken?"

"Not if you kill his body," Death answers. "If Tom's body dies, then his soul, however poorly stitched back together it may be, can be taken independently of yours. Once his soul has been taken, Crowley cannot go after yours—either piece. You should go. The hounds are close to your Horcrux."

Harry nods. He fixes his eyes back on Lily. "I love you."

She kisses his forehead, lips lingering on the lightning bolt scar before she draws back to look him in the eye and smile softly. "Tell your father I forgive him, and tell James I love him. I will always love you, too, Harry. Always. Now go."

"This isn't over, Harry," Riddle says, and Harry looks around at him as Lily steps away. "You've killed innocents; you're still coming to hell when you die and when you do, I'll be waiting for you."

"I look forward to it, Tom."

He ignores the angrily snarl, looks once more at Death, then at Lily, then closes his eyes and makes a Wish.

* * *

**Part 2**

When the Killing Curse strikes, Harry collapses and his active spells goes with him. The throne and the ropes binding the Death Eaters remain, but people are able to speak again and the wands floating near the ceiling fall to the floor. Draco is released from the throne and he screams, hurling himself towards the fallen body whose every scar is now on display. Narcissa looks at Snape, who stares at Harry like he can't quite believe what he's just done. When Draco scoops Harry up, his name spilling from pale lips in a sob, Snape takes a great, shuddering breath and lifts his hand. Tears spill down his cheeks and he closes his eyes as he presses the wand tip to his temple.

"NO!"

The Assistant crashes into Snape, knocking him to the floor and wrestling the wand from his fingers then throwing it away.

"Don't you fucking dare!" he screams.

Snape snarls, shoving him off. "I have just _murdered my son_."

"I don't care!" the Assistant yells, face twisted into an ugly expression and tears filling his own eyes. "You can't die. I won't let it happen again!"

"I'm not your father," Snape snaps. "My life is nothing to do with you and I have just destroyed the only thing I had left to live for. Get over yourself and let me pay the penance I ought to."

Harry's return to his body is accompanied by a shockwave of magic that shatters every window in the Great Hall and snuffs every floating candle. The students shriek and Draco lets out a yell as Harry's body jerks in his arms.

"Harry?"

"Darling, it's just a death rattle," Narcissa says softly. "The body—"

Harry inhales. Narcissa stares at him.

"Harry?" Draco whispers, hardly daring to believe he heard and saw what he did. Silence falls over the rest of the hall and every eye fixes on the pair. "Har-" He breaks off with an undignified yelp as Harry jerks out of his grip and leaps to his feet. Everyone gapes at him as he stands in place, all of his scars visible, his mismatched eyes staring blindly at the space in front of him. He holds both hands out in front of him and a glass dragon appears in his palms.

Then the door to the hall crashes open and an invisible hound steps inside.

Harry throws a hand into the air. Everyone but he and Voldemort lifts into the air, eliciting startled shrieks and shouted swear words. The wands on the floor skid across the stone to the far side of the room.

"Harry!" Draco calls. "What are you doing?"

"Making sure my debt is paid."

There's some irony in the fact that he's blind when he's the only person that should be able to see the hound. Hellhounds are visible only to the person they hunt so he can't use even someone else's eyesight to look at the beast, but he can hear it when he wordlessly casts a Silencing Charm on the people above him. He's left in darkness with the whistle of the wind through the broken windows, the heavy pounding of his own heartbeat, and the click of the hound's claws on stone. He faces the direction he thinks it's coming from and holds the Horcrux in front of him.

"Come on, puppy. You can have both at once if you come now."

There's a low growl, deeper and more vicious than he ever heard come from Padfoot, and then the rapid thud of paws as the animal charges. He doesn't move until he gets a whiff of rotten meat and sulphur, and then he leaps aside as the animal jumps. At the same moment, Voldemort's body lifts off the floor and flies into the spot where Harry was. The hound crashes into it, claws tearing into unresisting flesh and Voldemort, empty of a soul, does little to fight back.

But the hound doesn't kill him. Voldemort and dog crash to the floor and the hound jumps off him, leaving Voldemort bleeding but still alive, and turns to face Harry again. Once more Harry stands waiting for the creature to jump, moving only at the last moment to put Voldemort in his place, ensuring the hound attacks him instead.

The third time, he's not quick enough. The hound hits him and he screams as it knocks him to the floor, razor sharp claws ripping through clothes and flesh. Blood soaks wet and hot over his side and he cries out, then his magic works for him to throw the dog off. He hears it hit a wall with a whine, but all too soon it's back on its feet and snarling, claws clicking against the floor as it approaches him. He can still feel his Horcrux, gripped tightly in one hand, and he focuses on what he has to do, trying not to let the pain and the blood distract him. When the hound charges at him again, he Wishes for Voldemort and is glad to hear his body move and crash into the dog, knocking him off course. Apparently it's enough to inspire the creature to get rid of the thing that keeps getting in the way of its true target, because Harry hears it snapping and lashing at Voldemort's body, rendering it to pieces.

Harry knows when Voldemort's dead because a cockney accent speaks from nearby.

"This isn't finished, little Evans. You may have escaped on a technicality, but you're still coming downstairs one day and when you do, I'll be waiting for you."

It takes him a minute to remember that the rest of the school is suspended above him and he Wishes everyone back down, removing the Silencing Charm to hear shocked and confused chatter and Draco's voice calling his name, then he hears someone drop to their knees beside him. He's hyper aware of the blood pouring out of him and aware that he should be concerned, but the voices seem to take all his attention, phrases coming to him from all over and he struggles to figure out who's who.

"Harry! Harry, is that you?" Draco. "Oh god, Harry!" Hermione. "Bloody fuck." Cid. "Oh my god." Unknown. "What attacked him?" "Is it still here?" "What if we're next!" "Who was that man?" "Is the war over?" "You Know Who's dead!" "What if he's still in Evans?"

There's blood in his mouth, he realises and coughs to try and dislodge it, feeling it spill out his lips and over his face, but he forces it out so he can make himself speak.

"M-me. I-I'm me. N-not R-riddle."

Draco gives a wordless cry of relief, clearly taking him at his word, but he can hear others wondering, suspicious.

Two more figures drop down beside him. He hears a murmured spell and his robe disappears. He wants to shout an objection and demand it back, months of nakedness instilling in him a sense of fear and the belief that nudity means pain, but all he manages is a cry of pain as hands prod at his injuries, then he dissolves into more coughing. Suddenly all he's aware of is pain—in his side and chest, hot and sharp and tasting of blood.

"It's alright," he hears Draco says, voice shaky. "They'll fix you, you'll be alright, Harry."

"Let him die, we don't know that it's him!" another voice says, one Harry knows but can't put a name to immediately. "It could be You Know Who still and you're going to save his life!"

"Weasley—" he hears Snape snarl, but whatever he's about to say is cut off by a resounding SMACK!

"Ron Weasley, you horrible git!" Hermione's voice shrieks.

"Well it could—"

"Do you really think You Know Who would have saved all of us from whatever invisible creature Harry just fought? Do you ever actually use the brain I have to assume is in your head or has it shrivelled up from lack of exercise? How about instead of spreading unnecessary fear you take your useless self back to Gryffindor with the younger students and help keep them calm?"

"An excellent suggestion, Miss Granger," McGonagall agrees. "Fifty points to Gryffindor. Prefects! Take your houses back to the common rooms. If you haven't found your wand, leave it. They will be sorted shortly. Teachers, if you could please ensure the Death Eaters are secure."

"D-dad?"

Snape stares at Harry, slowly kneeling down beside Madam Pomfrey. Narcissa is on Harry's other side with Draco and the two women are working to heal the wounds covering Harry's body. Snape's still struggling to believe the evidence in front of his face, that Harry is alive despite the Killing Curse he cast, and he tries to convince himself Harry isn't going to bleed to death from wounds inflicted by what he has to assume is a hellhound instead.

"Dad?"

"I'm here, Harry."

"M-mum w-wanted me to t-tell you that she f-forgives you."

Snape doesn't know what she's forgiving him for. There's no small number of mistakes in his past for which he would need forgiveness from her, after all, but he doesn't for a second question that Harry honestly speaks words from Lily. If he accepts that Harry is alive when Snape himself cast the Killing Curse on him, then he will accept anything Harry says and does.

Instead he asks, mouth dry, "Do you?"

"Y-yes. For everything."

"Mr Evans, stop talking," Pomfrey chides him, never once taking her eyes from the shredded flesh marring Harry's torso, wand moving over the wounds. "We need to get him to the hospital wing and get a Blood Replenishment Potion in him."

* * *

"Precious, come," Lucius murmurs, prompting James to trot after him towards the door leading into the side room off the Great Hall.

"Where are we going?"

"Away. Narcissa will gladly hand us over with the rest of the Death Eaters for my consorting with Riddle. We have to leave."

"Not before you pay for your treachery, Lucius," snarls a familiar voice from behind a masked Death Eater they've just passed, not one who's yet been rounded up by the teachers. Ropes still bind him, but it doesn't stop him from raising his voice to shout above the rest of the noise in the hall, "Harry! Kill Draco and Lu-"

Lucius jerks his wand and Yaxley's throat slits open, cutting him off in mid-order, but it's not soon enough. Blood pours from Yaxley throat and he gargles, toppling over, but there's the simultaneous crack of a neck snapping and across the hall Narcissa shrieks.

* * *

Snape never thought he would ask his son to commit murder. He never thought he would ask anyone to commit murder, but in the few seconds after Draco's death, when Narcissa drops down beside the boy screaming and Harry's panicked voice calls his name and Lucius pushes through the crowd, giving Snape a clear view of Yaxley bleeding his life out while the Assistant, looking horrified and confused, drops to his knees as agony ripples through him, Snape realises he's the only one who understands what's about to happen and what has to be done to stop anyone else dying from the outburst of magic that'll come from Yaxley and the Assistant's Bond snapping.

He bends over the stretcher Pomfrey conjured to carry Harry on, puts his mouth to the boy's ear, and says clearly but quietly, "The Assistant has killed Draco. Kill him now!"

Relying on Harry's volatile magic to save them all is the riskiest thing he's ever done, made all the more dangerous by using Draco's death in a faint effort to guide the emotional outburst in a certain direction, but he knows it's their only chance. He can't kill the Assistant himself, not when there's people moving about and getting in the way. He's surprised the Assistant dies with nothing more than a sigh of exhaled breath, body flopping to the floor and changing back to his scarred and adult self. He's not surprised when the walls start to groan and the floor trembles, rock and stone shifting and creaking threateningly as Harry's magic lashes out, and he points the wand he already retrieved at Harry and silently stuns him, not daring to wonder if he'll be able to wake him again without Harry's grief destroying everything in the vicinity.


	113. Chapter 113

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: The archangel Michael and the demon Lilith are based on the characters from the TV show Supernatural. No copyright infringement is intended.

_"I want power."_

_"You are far too powerful."_

_"You're an incredible young man, Harry."_

_"... he will have power the Dark Lord knows not..."_

_"... you're powerful and dangerous..."_

_"You have power, child."_

_"See, you've got power—a_ lot _of power."_

_"You're actually so powerful it's a little bit terrifying."_

_"I have power the rest of you could never hope to wield."_

_"I outdid myself with you."_

* * *

_I have power. I can bend the world to my will. I can make it do what I want and believe what I want. I don't even want much. I want safety and justice and peace. I want to be with him and I don't even mind where, as long as we're happy together._

_I have power. It's time I used it._

* * *

Snape hands his wand over to the Azkaban guard, stands still as said guard slowly moves a Secrecy Sensor over him, then signs his name in the log book when he's been declared clean. A second guard leads him through the door that's become too familiar in recent months and through a torch-lit stone corridor to a second door. Beyond that is another corridor, this one lined by cells on one side. The prisoners inside them are mostly quiet, a few sitting by the bars to exchange quiet conversations with neighbours they can't see. With the Dementors gone, Azkaban is no longer a place of pure anguish and misery. That isn't to say it's pleasant—it's still a prison—but it isn't the torture that it once was.

They stop at the last cell on the row. A single prisoner sits on the bed inside, staring blankly at the wall opposite his bed, a purple teddy bear held on his lap. He doesn't react to the presence of Snape and the guard.

"Ten minutes," the guard says, and walks a small distance away to give a semblance of privacy.

"Hello, Harry," Snape greets.

* * *

Tyler sits nervously on a sofa in the sitting room of the Swift home—his home now, though even months later he's still getting used to it—and chews his nails as he watches the floo. He leaps to his feet when it flares and a familiar figure staggers out. He starts towards them then stops, watching as the boy wipes soot off his robes and then looks up, grinning broadly as baby blue eyes settle on Tyler's face.

"Hey, Tyler."

Tyler can't help smiling at the friendly tone. "Hey, Alex. Long time no see. You sound like a Yankee."

Alex laughs. "Missed you too, Tyler," he says, crossing the space between them and throwing his arms around the other boy in a hug. Tyler returns it, relaxing entirely at the familiar feel of his oldest friend's arms, and the two boys cling to each other for a long while before finally pulling apart.

"So," Alex says, still smiling. "Cid's your step-brother?"

"Yeah. Who'd have thought, right?"

"Kind of cool, though."

Tyler nods. "It's good. I like it."

"And Layla?"

"Yeah, she's good too. And Dylan's alright for a dad." He glances around then back at Alex and lowers his voice slightly to say, "Mrs Swift doesn't like me much."

Alex bites at his lip. "Because you're a squib now?"

Tyler looks down and away, but Alex reaches out and takes his hand. "I don't mind. I'm still your friend. And you're always welcome to come stay with us. You know that, right? I'll always give you a place to stay if you ever need or want it."

Tyler looks up at him, smiling gratefully. "Thanks, Alex."

* * *

"No Potter today," Snape says. "The Bond's finally eased up enough that he doesn't throw a fit every time I leave him. I'm still angry at you for making him want me to take it and making me agree; I know you did, even if you say nothing. But he's going to start looking for work now. I think he wants to go back to teaching. It'd mean moving to Hogsmeade or him flooing to the castle every morning, and that's if Minerva, the students, the Board of Governors, and the Ministry consent to ever letting him teach again.

"I'm still researching a fix for your epilepsy. I haven't got very far yet, admittedly, but I'll keep working on it for you. It keeps my mind busy. It keeps Potter quiet as well. He knows not to distract me when I'm working, though he does insist on watching me. I've mostly gotten used to it by now.

"Eldred Worple's been asking about writing a biography about you again. I was strongly tempted to lace my reply with bubotur pus. I've told him you're not responsive, but if he writes again I'm just going to tell him to come and visit. Perhaps then he'll get it into his thick skull that trying to talk to you is like talking to a brick wall...

"Sorry. You're infuriating sometimes, Harry, even if I know why. I just wish I could help you. I wish a lot of things, but it never does anyone any good so I should stop really."

* * *

Hermione finishes her chapter than checks her watch, closes her book, and stuffs it in her bag, getting to her feet and slinging her bag over her shoulder as she leaves the Hogwarts library. She makes her way to Charms alone, already going over the spells they'll be revising that day in preparation for the NEWTs that are only a month away. She's surprised at how calm she feels about the upcoming exams, but since Christmas, when she came back to Hogwarts to start her seventh year late, she's spent almost all of her free time studying. She lost both her best friends and she never really got close to the others in her year, even Lavender and Parvati despite six years of sharing a dorm. She and Neville haven't made up after everything and Hermione doubts they ever will; they speak to one another only when they have to and Neville seems to avoid her as much as he can. So she studies, filling hours she used to spend socialising instead reading, and whenever she feels a painful pang of loneliness and loss, she reminds herself that she missed a term of the year and should be grateful at the extra time to focus on studying and making sure she's caught up. It doesn't really make her feel better.

* * *

"I've got to go now."

Snape pauses, as always, to give Harry a chance to respond and, as always, is greeted only with silence. Harry doesn't so much as shift and hasn't the entire time Snape's been there. Snape will never understand how Harry went through his trial as cool and calm as Snape had ever seen him, confessing to every crime he ever committed under Voldemort's command, and to the murder of Vernon Dursley and the Assistant of his own free will, but from the moment his cell door closed behind him he completely withdrew into himself. According to the guards, and Lucius in the next cell over, the only time he ever speaks is at night, when he mutters in his sleep and more often than not wakes up screaming. Snape hates it, fights to get Harry sentenced to Saint Mungo's psychiatric ward instead, but the courts are adamant beyond reason. Harry was of sound mind when he confessed to his crimes, which weren't committed under the Imperius, and he is a danger to society, so he will spend the rest of his life in Azkaban.

Snape turns away, thinking he shouldn't torture himself by coming to see the broken wreck his son has become, but knowing he'll continue to do so anyway.

"I'll see you next month, Harry."

* * *

**Elsewhere**

"This is wrong."

"I'll say," Sirius agrees with Lily. "Snape is smiling. Nicely. With James."

"This whole place is wrong!" Lily snaps and the humour fades from Sirius' face. He shares a glances with Lupin, stood on the woman's other side, and then they both put a hand to her back and guide her from the cosy sitting room to the kitchen and towards the backdoor.

"Hey, where are you going?" Harry stops them, looking over with a smile from where he's pouring drinks. "We're having cake soon."

"Just taking your mum out for a chat," Sirius answers. "We'll be back in a sec, kid."

"Make sure you are."

Sirius smiles and leads Lily out into the garden, standing underneath blazing sunshine as Lupin shuts the back door and steps over to join them.

"Why is it so wrong, Lils?" Sirius asks her and she glares at him.

"You know why. This place isn't real. Harry can't stay here!"

"It's as real as purgatory or heaven or hell," Lupin counters calmly. "It's a lot nicer than two of them, as well."

"I am sorry, Remus," she says sincerely. "If it was my choice, I'd take you to heaven instead, but it's not, and it's beside the point. Harry can't continue to believe this place is real. He needs to return to reality, to earth."

"Why?"

The three of them turn to the door. Draco steps out, mouth turned into a scowl and eyes glaring at the three of them as he shuts the door behind him.

"Why does he have to return to reality?"

Lily looks at him with pity. "Draco, I understand you want him to stay, but he is projecting his soul to a fantasy world and he's ripped your souls from where you're supposed to be and taken me from my work. James and Severus aren't even real. Your parents aren't real, Draco. Are you satisfied to have imaginary parents?"

"I'm satisfied to have Harry," he replies.

"You would condemn Harry to spend the rest of his life insane because of your own selfishness?"

Guilt briefly flickers across Draco's face but it's quickly replaced by anger. "As opposed to you, who wants to see her own son waste away miserably in Azkaban. At least while his soul is here he's happy. He'll never be happy on earth."

"Mr Evans' happiness is quite beside the point," a new voice remarks and all four of them stiffen, turning to face the three figures now standing in the garden, all three giving off an unmissable aura of power that makes Sirius and Lupin back up until they stand by Draco. Lily remains where she is, but she glances between the three apprehensively.

"Who are you?" Sirius asks warily, drawing his wand but not raising it.

The one who spoke, a skeletal man in a black suit and holding a cane, answers, "I am Death. This," he says, gesturing to the figure on his left, a woman with pure white eyes and a white summer dress, "is Lilith, higher tier demon and representative of hell, and Michael—" he gestures to the handsome, suited man on his right who smiles politely "—archangel and representative of heaven."

"What, no one from purgatory?" Sirius quips, but there's a shake in his voice that belies his realisation that the people in front of him are far more dangerous than anyone or anything he's ever met.

Michael's polite smile vanishes. "The monsters of purgatory remain where they belong. All save one, at least," he comments with a distasteful look at Lupin.

Lupin grabs Sirius' arm to stop him doing anything stupid like trying to curse an archangel, and Lily speaks to Death.

"Sir, what is this about?"

"I'm sure you realise that, Lily. Your son has proven himself far more powerful than any of us could have imagined, even Crowley. Very few beings are able to create entire planes of existence, even for souls, or drag claimed souls—" he glances pointedly at Lupin, Sirius, and Draco "—out of their residence through sheer force of will."

"What do you intend to do about it?"

It's Michael who answers. "An agreement has been reached."

"Reluctantly," Lilith mutters. Michael ignores her.

"Harry Evans must not be made aware of his abilities. He must be kept ignorant of the true extent of his powers."

This statement is met by a brief silence and then Sirius blurts out, "You're afraid of him."

Lilith and Michael scowl then realise they're reacting the same and Michael's expression clears back to a mask of indifference while Lilith's scowl deepens.

"I'm a more powerful demon that you can imagine," Lilith responds to Sirius. "I'm working directly beneath Lucifer himself for the apocalypse that will soon tear your world apart. I do not fear a mortal child."

"If you aren't afraid of him, then why are you so desperate to keep him from figuring out just how powerful he is?"

"Sirius!" Lupin hisses. "Don't argue with them."

Lily glances between the three figures then settles her gaze on Death. "You expect me to let Harry keep believing all this is real, don't you?"

"I expect you to obey the laws I set down and maintain your duties as a reaper," Death replies. "Whether Harry _believes_ this place to be real or not is irrelevant, as long as he doesn't _know_ it is. Do you understand me, Lily?"

Her lips purse and her hands clench at her sides, returning Death's pointed stare without saying anything for several long moment, then her fists unclench and her expression eases. "Yes, sir. I understand."

"Good," he says, and the three beings vanish.

"You're going to ignore him, aren't you?"

Lily looks at Sirius like he's grown an extra head. "Do you think I'm mad, Sirius? I'm not going to disobey _Death_."

"You're going to do something," Lupin says. "I've been friends with James and Sirius for years, Lily. I know a scheming face when I see one."

"You can't," Draco snaps, arms folded over his chest. "You heard them. If heaven, hell, and Death agree on something, then we should do as they say!"

"I intend to," Lily tells him. "I won't let Harry know that this place is real. I intend to do the exact opposite."

When she starts towards the back door, Draco stands firmly in her way. "What do you mean by that?"

"I mean I intend to convince him that everything here is inside his head. When he believes that, he will give up the fantasy and let his soul return to his body."

"You don't know that, Lils," Sirius counters.

"No, but it's the best hope I have of convincing my son to return to reality."

A window opens just a few feet from them, prompting them all to look over as Harry sticks his head out. His skin is completely scar free and although his eyes are mismatched in colour they're both real, glinting with happiness as they look over everyone in the garden.

"Are you lot coming inside or what? This is meant to be a celebration party for mine and Draco's NEWT results and you're going to miss the cake if you don't hurry up. James and Dad will eat it all."

"I can believe that," Sirius says with a grin. "We'll be right in, kid."

Harry beams at them all and vanishes back inside, pulling the window shut behind him. Draco looks at Lily.

"You want to spoil that? To make him realise he's actually in Azkaban and wasting away? To be miserable?"

"I want him in reality," Lily says firmly. Draco's lip curls into a sneer and he says nothing more, turning and entering the house. Sirius goes after him, passing Lily without a glance, but Lupin pauses beside her.

"I won't help you," he says quietly. "If Harry thinks this place isn't real and he makes it vanish, then I go back to purgatory. This is as close to heaven as I can get, Lily. I won't stop you doing what you believe you have to, but I will never help you either."

She nods and he heads inside. She sighs, tells herself she's doing the right thing, and steps after him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There you have it, the end of 'For the Price of a Soul'. I hope you've all enjoyed it and I hope you don't hate me too much for killing Draco. As you can see, he's not completely gone.
> 
> To those of you wondering about the Assistant—his future has been deliberately left unmentioned on account of that fact that I want to leave my options open. I have various ideas about what to do with him, but haven't decided exactly where I want him to head. This doesn't mean there will be future stories about him... but it doesn't mean there won't be either. I make no promises either way.
> 
> So thank you for reading. I appreciate all reviews, good and bad (so long as you're polite about it), and I hope you'll continue on to read the sequel: 'Peace is a State of Mind'.


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